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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF 
THE GREAT LAKES 

INCLUDING THE STATES OF 

PENNSYLVANIA 

MINNESOTA 

NEW YORK 

WISCONSIN 

MICHIGAN 

INDIANA 

OHIO 

AND 

GLIMPSES OF CANADA 




On the shore of Lake Erie 



HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS 



OF THE 



GREAT LAKES 







* > 



WRITTEN AND 
ILLUSTRATED BY 

CLIFTON JOHNSON 







(AND 



-gVWA^ 



Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
New York Mcmxi 



LONDON: MACMILIAN AND CO., LIMITED 



Copyright, IQII, 

by the Macmillan Company. 






Set up and Electrotyped. 
Published October. 191 1. 



AMERICAN 
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS 



^ » 



THE GREAT LAKES 



Electrotyped 

Printed " ' 

/". .v. Bassette Company AY 

Springfield, Mass. 



gCU297l05 



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Contents 


Page 


I. 


The Valley of the Genesee . . . . 


I 


II. 


A Voyage on the Erie Canal . 


20 


III. 


Tragic Niagara . . . . . . 


38 


IV. 


The Pennsylvania Shore . . . . 


55 


V. 


An Autumn Paradise . . . . . 


82 


VI. 


From Lake Erie to Lake Huron . 


104 


VII. 


A Michigan Forest Fire . . . . 


133 


VIII. 


The Straits of Mackinac . . . . 


. 153 


IX. 


Roundabout the "Soo" 


. 179 


X. 


The Region of the Pictured Rocks 


205 


XI. 


The Copper Country . . . 


. 226 


XII. 


The Land of Iron . . . . . 


. 240 


XIII. 


Wisconsin Watersides . . . . , 


264 


XIV. 


An Illinois Valley . . . . . 


284 


XV. 


Tippecanoe ...... 


303 



VII 



Illustrations 



On the Shore of Lake Erie 

A Bend of the Stream 

Beside Lake Ontario 

A Villager .... 

Making Ready to Sow Wheat . 

Entering the Locks at Lockport 

Dinner Preparations 

Steering a Mule to the Cabin Stable 

Working the Pump 

The American Falls 

Entering the Niagara 

Where La Salle Launched the "Griffon" 

Looking down on the Canadian Falls from 

A Fish Wharf 

In a Vineyard 

Picking Tomatoes 

Stacking Corn 

Ohio Peaches 

Fishermen 

Advising the Ditch Digger 

Looking Out of Put-in-Bay 

On the Deck of a Sailing Vessel 

On the Hotel Piazza 

The Village Sidewalk 



Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

7 



Goat 



Islan 






II 

14 

18^ 

23 '^ 

39 '^ 

43^ 
46 ' 

50 



v^ 



57 '" 
64^ 



72 
81 

87 

9' 
94 
98 

107 

no 

116' 



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\^ 



y 



IX 



Illustrations 



Ancient Mariners . 

Logs .... 

Ringing the Schoolbell 

Clearing Up the Burnt Land 

The Pump at the Back Door 

Grubbing Up Stumps 

The Picturesque Old Town of Mackinac 

A Village Wayside . 

One of the Fort Gateways 

Starting for the Fishing Grounds 

Entering the "Soo" Canal 

In the Business Center . 

Hauling Off Stranded Logs 

The Dog Team 

Making Repairs 

Driftwood for Home Fires 

Examining the Nets 

School Children 

The Duck Hunter 

The Well 

Binding Barley 

The Kite-flyers 

On Portage Lake 

At the End of the Day 

A Primitive Wigwam 

The Partridge 

A Birch Bark Canoe 

The Straw Stack 

The Workers . 

The Harvest . 

A Schoolhouse 



/ 



123 *' 
126 

133 

137^' 

139' 
142 

144 

155 
158 

166^^ 

179-^ 

192 '^ 

201^ 

208 

212 - 

216^ 

221 

225 

229 

231 ■ 

235 ■ 
238^^ 

242 

251 
254 
260 ^' 
265 
272 - 



,/ 



y 



277 

281 



Illustrations 



XI 



The Bluffs on Rock River 
A Farmyard Family 
Putting in a Pane of Glass 
Getting the Mail . 
Hewing out Railroad Ties 
Saturday Afternoon in Town 
Returning from the Spring House 
Ready to Start for Work 



284^ 

288^ 

292 

297 

304 
309^/ 

312 



\/ 



321 



y 



Introductory Note 

This book is a record of a search for the picturesque 
and the characteristic in nature and life in the Great 
Lakes region. For the most part I have kept to the 
immediate vicinity of the lake shores, but there are 
several digressions a considerable distance inland. I 
did not, however, in any instance, go outside of the 
district that is directly tributary to these vast fresh- 
water seas. 

What I have especially sought was variety of in- 
terest, and an inclusion of all the more important 
features that give the region its individuality. Yet, 
this book, like its predecessors, deals with the rustic 
rather than the urban attraction, and has compara- 
tively little to say about the cities. It is concerned 
far more with the rural byways, the villages, the farm 
homes, and the fishermen loitering by the watersides. 
Life in typical small communities and the personal 
experiences of pioneers and other individuals have large 
place in these pages. The history of the lakes and 
industrial conditions are touched on only incidentally; 

XIII 



but all in all I trust that the book conveys a vivid 
impression of what the region now is from a human 
standpoint, and of how it has developed from an un- 
tamed wilderness. As the volume is one of a series 
covering the United States I do not deal much with the 
Canadian side of the lakes. Only along the Detroit 
River where the two countries touch most intimately 
have I given any detailed attention to our northern 
neighbor. 

These "Highways and Byways" volumes are often 
consulted by persons who are planning pleasure tours. 
To make the books more helpful for this purpose each 
chapter has a note appended containing suggestions 
for intending travellers. With the aid of these notes, 
I think the reader can readily decide what regions are 
likely to prove particularly worth visiting, and will 
know how to see such regions with the most comfort 

and facility. 

Clifton Johnson. 

Hadley, Mass. 



XIV 



Highways and Byways of the 

Great Lakes 



THE VALLEY OF THE GENESEE 

THE Genesee Valley in western New York was a 
paradise to the early settlers, and though the 
old-time seekers-after-fortune soon found su- 
perior attractions farther toward the sunset, this vale 
has never wholly lost its fame or charm. All along the 
river is much fine farming country, but the portion 
that especially gladdened the hearts of the pioneers 
was the forty miles above Rochester where broad and 
wonderfully rich alluvial flats bordered it on either side. 
At Rochester are two mighty falls, and the power 
these furnish determined the site of the city and has 
been a chief factor in the town's prosperity and rapid 
growth. The more important fall is in the very heart 
of the city. Great manufactories and tall chimneys 
loom above the chasm that opens below, smoke and 
steam are drifting about, and the din of machinery 
and of traffic on streets bridges and railways fills the 
ears. The gorge continues for several miles almost 
to Lake Ontario. 



I 






2 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

As I was about to step on an electric car that went 
in the lake direction, it started unexpectedly, and an 
elderly German just behind me caught my arm and 
pulled me back. "It ain't safe to jump on no car that 
is going," said he. "Sometimes you get hurt." 

We followed it to the opposite side of the street where 
we got comfortably aboard and occupied a seat together. 
My companion was an old resident of the region, and 
by the time we were out of the city he was telling me 
how he emigrated to America at the age of seventeen. 
And I've been here forty-eight years," said he. 
When I come there was nothing but big farms here, 
where now you see the land all cut up into little market- 
gardening farms of five or ten acres. They pay high 
for these little places, and yet the owners make money — 
oh! you bet!" 

I inquired about the nationality of the market- 
gardeners, and he replied: "The biggest share of 'em 
is of all kinds. Across the road from where I live a 
Belgian has just bought, and he gave a thousand dol- 
lars an acre. I wouldn't like to taste that honey. I'm 
afraid it would sour on me. I own seventy acres, but 
it's rough, with deep hollows and steep hills, and is 
not well suited for gardening. Look — there is my 
house where you see that threshing-machine at work 
in front of the red barn. My son manages the farm 
now." 

He got oif, but I went on as far as the lake and 
rambled along a stretch of sandy shore. The air was 



The Valley of the Genesee 3 

unusually clear, and the water was a deep blue in the 
distance, but nearer had a greenish hue, and in the 
shallows along shore was yellow with mud that had been 
stirred up by the waves or brought down by the river. 
Great snaggy tree-trunks strewed the waterside, half 
buried in the sand, and shaggy with green moss in their 
less-exposed portions. Here and there was a clam-shell, 
and there were occasional little white snail-shells and 
scatterings of polished pebbles. In the warm-weather 
vacation days the shore here had been enlivened by 
pleasure-seekers, but now it was early autumn and the 
beach was well-nigh deserted. 

At the mouth of the river was a life-saving station 
with its staunch, white-painted boats. The life-savers 
are on duty from early April to December. Nearly all 
traffic on the lakes ceases during the winter, though 
the lakes themselves do not by any means freeze solidly 
over. The stormy months that prelude the winter 
furnish the most wrecks, but it is in summer that the 
life-savers at the mouth of the Genesee are busiest; 
for the pleasure craft which abound here have frequent 
mishaps, and the timely assistance of the government 
men prevents many a tragedy. Yet in spite of their 
efforts several drownings occur in the vicinity each 
year, and the life-savers always pick up a number of 
dead bodies that have drifted from elsewhere — perhaps 
as many as a dozen during a season. Some of the bodies 
are those of suicides from the falls up the river, and 
others have been brought by wind and current from 



4 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

more or less remote portions of the lake. They seldom 
are found on the shore, but are seen floating by the 
lookout who is always scanning the water. As a rule 
the drowned persons are identified. When they are 
not, the bodies are buried in paupers' graves in the 
Rochester cemetery. 

On my way back toward the city I stopped at the 
home of the old German. The threshing engine was 
in the dooryard, and the thresher itself on the barn 
floor. Several men were on a big rye stack close to the 
barn passing down the bundles, and the straw came 
out in a steady stream at the back barn door where 
more men were stationed to make a new stack of it. 
A spout delivered the grain into a basket on the barn 
floor, and a man carried it to an adjoining bin. That 
growing golden pile — a store of healthful food signifi- 
cant of nature's bounty — was exceedingly good to 
look at. The rye stack had at first been as high as the 
barn itself, and on the opposite side of the great doors 
was a stack of oats almost as large that would follow 
the rye through the thresher. 

The threshing crew consisted of five men. They 
went with their apparatus from farm to farm through 
the region spending a day or two threshing at each 
place. It was expected that the farmer would furnish 
about eight additional men and have ready a wagon- 
load of coal. These extra men were recruited among 
the neighbors, who were accustomed to exchange work 
on such occasions. The threshing crew slept in the 



The Valley of the Genesee 5 

barn on the hay, but the farmer's wife fed them, and 
furnished dinner for the other helpers. Threshing 
begins about the middle of August and continues 
through September. I asked if the outfit was useful 
for other purposes. 

"That's an awful powerful engine, boy," replied the 
captain of the crew with emphasis. "It'll go right onto 
a woodlot and saw, and it'll work on the roads, and it 
is useful in a good many ways. Still, it's apt to be idle 
seven or eight months out of the twelve." 

"Everything's done with machinery now," com- 
mented the old farmer. "When I come here we 
threshed by hand, and reaped by hand, too. The 
region wasn't nearly so thickly settled as it is at present, 
and you wouldn't see a darn soul stirring on the high- 
ways some days. The land was covered with stumps- 
pine, chestnut, and oak stumps— and they stood just as 
close together as those peach trees do there in the or- 
chard. I used to dig up the pine stumps and sell them 
to the factories for fuel. They were full of pitch and 
would burn bright and hot. But you couldn't do any 
splitting or sawing, the things were so tough and twisty. 
You had to chop, chop, chop. I got out one stump 
that made two cords and three-quarters. We still find 
pine roots once in a while. The plough turns 'em out, 
and they're good to burn even yet." 

"What crops did you raise?" I inquired. 

"Oh, we raised chickens and wheat and children, 
and I don't know what," he responded. "But I must 



6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

help the threshers now. There are nice peaches in the 
orchard. Go and take all you want." 

So I visited the orchard, and Johnny, the small boy 
of the household, went with me. The sweetest and 
most toothsome peaches were those on the ground 
that had fallen off from very ripeness, and in which all 
woody fiber had disappeared and left only juice and 
flavor. While we searched about for the choicest I 
observed, oif across a deep hollow, the farm herd of 
cows idly ruminating on a hill-top. Johnny informed 
me that one of the herd was a bull; "but he's a great 
coward," said the lad, "and I go in and chase him 
around with a stick." 

An idyllic grassy lane wound down the hollow from 
the barn to the pasture, and beside this lane was a 
small pond with reedy borders, where a flock of geese 
paddled about. "I fell in that pond one day," remarked 
Johnny. "I got wet — awful wet, and I had my clothes 
on. I was ketchin' little hoppertoads. I went in head 
first all over; but I swam to shore, and Ethel pulled 
me out. She's my sister. My mother didn't whip me. 
She asked me how I liked it." 

When we returned to the house, after Johnny had 
shown me the colts and the pigs and a pet lamb, it was 
noon, and Ethel had come home from school. She 
brought with her several girl friends to see the threshing, 
but after a little running around they spread a bit of 
carpet in the shade of an apple tree, and sat down to 
eat their lunches. Meanwhile the engine had blown a 




A bend of the stream 



The Valley of the Genesee 7 

shrill toot, and the workers had stopped for dinner. 
The stout, sweaty fellows washed up at a bench near 
the back door, and then went inside through the leanto 
kitchen, where the housewife was scurrying around, 
to a little dining-room beyond that was a few steps 
higher up. 

I asked for the privilege of eating with them, but was 
invited instead to wait for the second table and eat 
with the family. We presently sat down, and when I 
had been helped generously to meat potato and cab- 
bage, grandpa called my attention to a flourishing 
cherry tree that we could see through the screen door 
on the near side of the garden. "I used to have trouble 
raising cherry trees," said he. "As soon as I set one 
out my wife would begin to empty her soapsuds around 
it to make it grow, and that killed 'em every time. 
I thought she'd killed this, but I transplanted it to that 
spot where it wasn't handy for her soapsuds, and it's 
now a fine tree. I put it there nine years ago." 

"Oh, no," said grandma, "it's not so long as that." 

"Why, yes it is," he retorted. "Can't you remember 
anything at all no more.f"' 

An eleven-months-old baby sat in a go-cart beside 
the table, and presently grandma reached down and 
took the baby in her lap remarking, "She's the best 
girl in town." 

Then she gave her a spoon to play with, and pretty 
soon experimentally dipped up a little cabbage with it. 
The taste of the cabbage seemed to be to the baby's 



8 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

liking, and grandma gave her some more, whereat the 
mother rather mildly and ineffectually protested, and 
then turning to me said: "You let a baby eat any- 
thing it wants, and you have trouble. I know I called 
the doctor for Johnny once when he was small, and 
the doctor asked, 'What's he been eatin'?' They always 
say a doctor knows everything. He don't, but he was 
right about Johnny. I watched the boy afterward, 
and he'd get out of sight behind the barn with an apple 
to chew on." 

While the women were finishing their meal somewhat 
leisurely, after the men folks had gone out to work, 
Johnny came in snivelling and announced that grandpa 
had said he must bait the cows. His mother reassured 
him by saying that he was staying at home from school 
to take care of the baby and need therefore only help 
grandpa get the cows out of the pasture. "Yes," she 
said as he was leaving, "Johnny's supposed to be help- 
ing me with the baby, and he was in the house just 
once this morning. He asked if she was sleeping, and 
when he found that she was — 'Good!' he said, and 
away he went." 

The floor of the dining-room was covered with a rag 
carpet. This carpet was comparatively new, and such 
carpets are still often made in the region. "It'll out- 
wear any ordinary manufactured carpet," declared the 
housewife. "I've got an ingrain carpet on my parlor, 
and it's only been there three or four years, but there's 
holes in it already. One advantage of this carpet is 



The Valley of the Genesee 9 

that you can cut the breadths apart and stick it in a tub 
and wash it. It looks good afterward. Mother and I 
washed one last week; I wish you could have seen it." 

When I left this hospitable farmhouse I loitered 
back toward Rochester along a highway that was 
bounded on either side by an endless succession of 
fields, with their celery and tomatoes, beets and melons, 
and other vegetables, intermitting with orchards of 
apple, peach, pear, plum, and cherry trees. By and by 
I encountered two ladies who had come from a cross- 
way, each with a heaping handle-basket of peaches. 
They set the baskets down to wait for the electric cars, 
and one of them hailed me with an invitation to have 
some of their fruit. "It was given to us," she said, 
"and Fd like to share it with others. I know when 
I'm in a region, a stranger, how glad I'd be to eat some 
of the fruit that was going to waste, if only it was offered 
to me." 

So I had peaches a-plenty that day, free as the air, 
and altogether delicious. Moreover, a little farther 
on I came across a canteloupe by the wayside. It was 
perfectly good, except for a small soft spot, and it had 
evidently been heaved out of an adjacent field. I ate 
what I could, and after enjoying thoroughly its ripe 
and nutty flavor left behind with regret the greater 
portion. 

On the other side of Rochester the river creeps along 
between attractive cultivated fields and pasture lands; 
but to see the stream and the farmlands in a more 



lO Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

lively aspect I went by train fifty miles inland to Port- 
age Falls. Here was a country village with two hotels, 
several little stores and churches, a blacksmith shop, 
and a gristmill. A drowsy quiet brooded over it and 
there were seldom more than two teams, or half a 
dozen persons on foot in sight on the streets. Round 
about mounded the green hills, with here and there a 
road seeking the easiest way over a height, and an 
occasional farmhouse. There are three falls. To get 
to them by the highway one has to traverse a consider- 
able distance, but a footpath makes a shortcut over 
a lofty hill. This path is quite charming, now in the 
open, and now meandering through woodland, and 
it even has a stile or two by which to get over fences. 
It is a well-trodden way connecting a small outlying 
hamlet with the main village, and is much frequented 
by school children going back and forth with their 
dinner pails and books. I fancied that originally the 
Indians must have gone over this trail and worn the 
first faint depression with their moccasined feet. 

The falls are impressive in height and in the volume 
of water that passes over them, they have never been 
harnessed, and their voice is as loud and wild as in 
the days of the aborigines. Below the final falls is a 
tremendous canyon whose perpendicular cliff's and 
yawning depths would be imposing even among the 
Rocky Mountains. The land here is a public park, 
and it has not been ruthlessly invaded by choppers for 
many a long year. So there are numerous trees that 




Beside Lake Ontario 



The Valley of the Genesee il 

have attained noble proportions, and the sylvan paths, 
and shadowed rivulets are delightful. 

Attractions of another sort in the vicinity of the falls 
are an Indian council house, the grave of "The White 
Woman of the Genesee," and a typical pioneer dwelling. 
None of these rightfully belong in this particular place, 
but had they not been moved here it is very doubtful 
if they would have been preserved and properly cared 
for. The council house was erected long before the 
American Revolution by the Senecas at Caneadea, the 
uppermost of their villages on the Genesee. It is about 
sixteen by forty feet with walls of large, well-hewn 
pine logs, dove-tailed at the corners. The roof is of 
"shakes," or long hand-split shingles, held in place by 
poles bound with withes. The little window openings 
are barred with sticks. On the earth floor in the center 
of the house the Indians built their fire and gathered 
about it for their council, while the smoke escaped 
through apertures in the ridge. 

"The White Woman of the Genesee" was Mary 
Jamison who was taken captive at Marsh Creek, 
Pennsylvania, by a Shawnee war party in 1755, when 
she was twelve years old. Her parents and her sister 
and two brothers were slain, but she was carried off a 
captive, and at the age of fourteen married an Indian. 
When he died she married another Indian. Most of 
her life was spent on the banks of the Genesee, and there 
all but one of her eight children were born. She refused 
to leave the Indians when the opportunity was offered. 



12 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

and continued with them until she died in 1833. The 
log dwelling which adjoins the council house belonged 
to her daughter, but she herself spent much time in it. 
The large open fireplace and the chimney are made of 
sticks plastered with clay, and the stairs leading up 
to the loft consist of a sloping log with notches cut in 
it for footholds. 

In my wanderings in the region I one day got ac- 
quainted with a villager who was whetting his scythe 
preparatory to mowing the weeds and grass on the 
borders of his garden. Early in our conversation he 
let me know that he would be seventy-six on his next 
birthday, but he was still straight and vigorous. How- 
ever, he considered that his working days were over, 
and he labored only as the spirit moved, not from 
necessity, and was therefore quite ready to talk. 

"In 1 861," said he, "I mowed with a scythe twenty- 
six days consecutively. We cut all our grass with 
scythes then. The mowers would begin at sunrise and 
quit at sunset, and they stuck to that one job. There 
were others to spread the swathes and take care of the 
drying and getting-in. Later in the season Td go from 
farm to farm and thrash clover seed with my flail, 
thirty or forty bushels at a place." 

His interest in these recollections had caused him to 
speak with more vigor and noise than were really neces- 
sary, and presently an old lady who was pottering around 
in the garden interrupted him. "Felix," said she, "you 
needn't holler. There ain't nobody deef here." 



The Valley of the Genesee 13 



"Well, Vm deef myself," he responded, "and I 
want to hear what I'm saying." 

Then he resumed the thread of his discourse, and said : 
"We used to have a tannery here, and a wagon shop 
and sawmills. But they're all gone. This country 
is depopulated. Pshaw! there ain't a fifth of the in- 
habitants there used to be. It's just the same all along 
the stream in the little places — the industries have 
gone to the cities, and the country villages are dead. 
There used to be plenty of work here all the year 
round. Every winter we lumbered it. At present 
there's nothing left to lumber. The best trees was 
taken long ago, and we've skinned the woodlands 
until today 'twould be hard to find even a walking- 
stick. I cleared up fifty acres of woodland myself. 
The big timber I sold, and I saved some fence posts 
that I drawed to the depot at six cents apiece, but the 
rest I just rolled together and burned. There was lots 
of it that would be valuable now — you bet your sweet 
life! 

"But no matter how much land the old-time farmers 
cleared up they kept a piece of the best woodland for 
posterity. It was the sentiment of every farmer that 
this woodland should be saved to draw from to keep 
up the buildings on the place, and it was sacred to 
them. Yet as soon as posterity got their hands on it 
they turned it into money and swept those patches of 
woodland off the face of the earth as clean as you could 
sweep with a broom. 



14 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"I've seen first-class pine lumber sold here when I 
was a kid at five dollars a thousand. Now the price 
is out of sight. The pines we used to cut would average 
three or four feet through at the butts. Some were as 
much as six feet. We wouldn't draw a log with knots 
in it out of the woods. We'd let it lie and rot. You'll 
occasionally see the pine stumps set up on edge along 
the borders of the fields and serving for fences. Those 
stumps will turn cattle and stock yet, though they've 
been exposed to the weather fifty years and more. 

"What little woodland there is left now don't have 
half a chance on account of fires; and it's the railroad 
that's most to blame. There's a law to compel the use 
of spark-catching screens in the smokestacks, but the 
fellows on the engines pull the screens out in order to 
get a better draft, and when a train is working hard 
going up a steep grade you'll see chunks of live coal 
as big as your fist flying out. So in a dry time the fires 
not only run through the woods, but burn a good deal 
of fencing. It ain't easy to get damages either. Possi- 
bly the railroad authorities will give you wire for a new 
fence if you furnish the posts, and even then they'll 
act as if they were doing you a favor you had no right 
to expect. 

"Yes, the woodland is gone, and with it the hunting. 
Until a few years ago we used to be able to console 
ourselves by going fishing once in a while, but there 
are no fish any more now. They were all killed off" as 
the result of a flood and a freeze. The flood occurred 




i>. 






A villager 



The Valley of the Genesee 15 

in July, 1902, and the water was so high the apple 
trees down on the flat only showed a little of their top 
brush above the surface. Crops were washed away 
and houses flooded, and more than one good farm was 
covered with gravel. The water soon went down, for 
this is a very flashy stream. No other river in the 
state rises and falls so quickly. 

"After that big flood every sag in the flats held a 
pond that was full of fish,- and the boys would go and 
ketch with their bare hands all they could carry home. 
An extremely cold winter followed, which froze all 
the flood-ponds where the fish had got imprisoned clear 
to the bottom, and not a blooming fish survived. 
Even the kids won't go fishing now, and the only fish 
we ever see in the river are a few of these white suckers 
that come down in the spring from the side streams. 

"Thirty or forty years ago all the flats along the 
river were used for growing broomcorn, and this was a 
dandy place for boys in their teens. They could work 
in the fields in summer, and in the broomshops in 
winter, and make big money. Now broomcorn is 
grown cheaper in the West, and weVe gone into other 
crops. You'll find more potatoes raised here than 
anything else. In the early days, if a man had an acre 
of potatoes, he didn't know what in Sam Hill to do 
with 'em, except what his family could eat. He had no 
city market within reach; but with the growth of the 
towns and the building of railroads it's difi'erent. We 
can sell what we raise now, though I don't think the 



l6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

potatoes are so good. For some reason or other we 
plant later, and they don't get ripe enough. You might 
just as well eat a piece of green pumpkin as an unripe 
potato; but the city people don't know a good potato 
when they see one — that's the God's truth. 

"Last year a good many farmers didn't dig till the 
potatoes froze and was teetotally spoiled. They wa'n't 
worth five cents a bushel, and yet lots of them frost- 
bitten potatoes were marketed just the same as if 
they'd been all right. For seed they were no earthly 
use. If they were planted they'd come up, but the 
confounded things wouldn't grow. My son was about 
the only farmer around here who dug and got in his 
potatoes early. The consequence was that men came 
from all over creation to buy seed of him. 

"If you've been around among the farms much 
you've noticed considerable many empty houses. You 
might think deserted farms could be picked up at a 
bargain. But really there's no cheap lan^ to be had. 
It's all worked. The value of a place depends a good 
deal on how the owner takes care of it. There was an 
unthrifty sort of a fellow over the river who inherited 
a nice farm there, and his head swelled so big because 
of this sudden wealth that it wouldn't hold together. 
Dog-goned if he didn't go in debt to buy a farm across 
the road from his in order to get rid of having an Irish- 
man for a close neighbor. Ordinarily nationality or 
religion don't cut no figure here, and it would have been 
better for this man if he'd been less prejudiced. He 



The Valley of the Genesee 17 

kad more land than he could work before, and by and 
by there was a sheriff's sale. The two farms only 
brought four thousand dollars; and by the big horn! it 
was an Irishman that bought 'em. You couldn't get 
'em now for fifteen thousand. He's made good farms 
of 'em — no two ways about it. 

"I can remember when eight dollars an acre was 
considered a fair price for cut-off pine-stump land suit- 
able for wheat. Wheat land was the only land that was 
really valued, and the rest you could buy almighty 
cheap. The old original settlers, in the course of time, 
would sell out to some young man at a high price, and 
he'd go over the land year after year raising wheat, 
but putting on no fertilizer, until he'd wheated it out. 
Then — whift! he'd go West and start again with new 
soil where a farm could be had almost for the asking. 

"But someone would always take the old place here. 
The kind of fellow who made a financial success on the 
farm was one who was willing to work, rain or shine, 
from daylight to dark. Monkey business won't do. 
But farming don't seem to attract our young people 
much, and their education mostly pulls them away from 
it. They want to get a living without working with 
their hands. As soon as their schooldays are over they 
skip to the city. You know what that means — no 
more wash-tub, or sweat, or muscular exertion as a 
means of earning money. They'll accept any sort of 
wages rather than go back to the farm. The girls are 
just as wild in this matter as the boys. They wouldn't 



1 8 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

wash dishes if you was to give 'em ten dollars a week, 
and there ain't half of 'em could make a shirt and sew a 
button on it. 

"If things keep on in this way I don't know where 
it'll pan out. The fact is, this is a peculiar nation of 
ours, and in some respects it has been a humbug from 
first to last. For instance, see how it used to be a free 
country with slavery in it. Our politics are a disgrace 
to the world. Every law for the protection of the people 
seems to have a hole in it as big as your head. They 
make the laws that way on purpose, and the trusts sit 
back and laugh at you. It's astonishing, too, the kind 
of men that capture the important offices. There was 
Tom Piatt — in his own town he couldn't have been 
elected as a gooseherd. There wasn't a greater rascal 
out of jail, and yet, by thunder! he represented this 
great state in Washington as senator! If we don't make 
a change for the better we'll get to be as bad as Vene- 
zuela or Mexico or any of the other countries south 
of us. I've been voting with the Republicans ever since 
1856; but they've had their own way a little too much. 
We've got to turn the rascals out to teach 'em a lesson, 
even if we let some other rascals in, and I'm going to 
vote the Democratic ticket this fall. Yes, I hope we'll 
throw the whole concern out body and bones. 

"Now we've talked so long I won't have time to mow 
today. Well, never mind, talking is about all I'm good 
for at my age, and there's another day coming, or, if 
there ain't, the mowing won't matter anyway." 




Making ready to sow wheat 



M 



The Valley of the Genesee 19 

Note. — At the eastern end of Lake Ontario the Thousand Islands 
begin with the outflow of the river St. Lawrence, and these are one 
of the most famous attractions of the Great Lakes region. They are 
best seen by taking a trip down the river, and are more naturally 
included in a tour of the St. Lawrence Valley than in that of the 
lakes. A steamer voyage on Ontario can very well begin among the 
westernmost of the Thousand Islands at Clayton and it can continue 
nearly the full two hundred mile length of the lake to Toronto. An 
acquaintance with this important Canadian city will be appreciated 
by most travellers. From there it is only a thirty mile journey across 
the lake to the mouth of the Niagara River. 

In this chapter I have indicated some of the interesting features 
of the historic Genesee Valley. Rochester is the natural stopping 
place for touring in the valley, and the city itself with its great manu- 
factories, its fine parks, and the river making a fall of nearly one 
hundred feet in its midst, is worthy of special attention. Main 
Street crosses the river by a Concealed bridge, lined on both sides 
with houses, just as was old London Bridge. Near by, the Erie 
Canal is conducted over the river by an aqueduct. The lake is 
within easy reach. In the other direction is pastoral farming 
country; but keep on south for fifty miles and you are amid rude 
hills, and here are the three Portage Falls that vary in height from 
seventy to one hundred and fifty feet. These falls, with the wild 
gorge through which the stream flows and the piquant broken 
country roundabout, are well worth visiting. 



II 



A VOYAGE ON THE ERIE CANAL 

THE most widely-famed commercial outlet of the 
Great Lakes is the Erie Canal, which furnishes 
a waterway across New York State to the 
Hudson. It was completed in 1825. Not until five 
years later was the first railroad in the state begun, and 
the canal, in its early days, was a popular thoroughfare 
of travel as well as of trade. The passenger boats, or 
packet boats, as they were called, accommodated about 
thirty persons. They were fitted up with dining-rooms, 
and they had separate apartments for ladies and gentle- 
men, which were lined with berths. The fare was three 
cents a mile. Dinner cost thirty-seven and a half cents, 
breakfast twenty-five, lodging twelve and a half. Three 
stout horses towed the boat at a brisk trot, and were 
exchanged for fresh ones at the end of every ten miles. 
Two horses, or sometimes a single one, sufficed to tow 
the freight boats; and passengers with more time than 
money travelled on these slower craft at a cost of a cent 
and a half a mile. 

The waterway was spanned by frequent bridges, 
some of which were so low as to make it hazardous to 
sit on the upper deck. But when the boat approached 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 21 

a bridge of this sort, the helmsman called out in a loud 
voice, "Low bridge!" and the passengers promptly 
ducked their heads. The packet boats carried the mails 
and were met at every important point by stages con- 
necting with the neighboring towns and villages. 

For several decades the canal was the all-important 
transportation route between the Great Lakes and the 
Atlantic. Passengers found the packet boats far prefer- 
able to the jolting and often overcrowded stage-coaches, 
and even the railroads did not at first successfully 
compete with the canal's popularity. But since about 
i860 its traffic has been gradually declining. 

The packet boats have long since ceased their jour- 
neying, but the freight boats still ply back and forth; 
and I wondered what the characteristics of life on the 
canal were now. While I was in Rochester, I looked 
down on its slow traffic from a bridge in the heart of 
the city where a broad business street crossed the 
waterway. That full, gentle stream and the ponderous 
boats moving so smoothly and silently seemed quite 
idyllic, but I did not like to see the draught animals 
straining so hard and continuously. Their work was 
plainly unrelieved drudgery. Yet for the crews I 
thought the life must conduce to philosophic contem- 
plation and serenity. There was the captain leaning 
lazily against the tiller, and only rarely needing to shift 
his position to keep the boat to a steady course in mid- 
channel. One of his men was leisurely pacing the tow- 
path driving the mules, and two or three other men were 



22 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

on board with little to do, apparently, for they simply 
lounged about and watched with mild interest such 
sights of the city as their viewpoint afforded. 

The charm of this sort of voyaging so appealed to me 
that I determined to try it for myself; but I was a little 
doubtful how much of it I would find enjoyable, and I 
decided to attempt no more than the journey from 
Lockport to the Niagara River. At Lockport is the 
most notable series of locks on the canal — a gigantic 
double stairway of five watery steps, twelve feet to a 
step. The scene at the lower end, with the towering 
buildings of the city rising on either side of a deep 
chasm is quite imposing. As I looked at the bordering 
structures through the silvery haze of a morning mist 
their seeming height was increased, and their pic- 
turesque skyline made me fancy I was gazing at some 
hoary castle of old Europe. 

Traffic was not very lively at the locks. "I c'n 
remember when there was eleven thousand boats on the 
canal," said one of the lockmen; "but now there ain't 
five hundred. More boats used to pass through here in 
a day than go through now in a week. " 

While he was speaking three west-bound boats came 
along, and one at a time entered the successive stages 
of the locks. There was little noise or fluster — the men 
adjusted ropes and called back and forth, and the mules 
that did the towing were now urged forward and now 
halted, and a slight gushing of water could be heard 
when the locks swung open. As soon as one of the great 




Entering the locks at Lockport 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 23 

boats was in a lock it rose smoothly and steadily as if 
by magic. 

I scraped acquaintance with the captain of the fleet, 
and he readily agreed that I should go along as a pas- 
senger. To get on was very easy, for the boats lacked 
only a few inches of being as wide as the locks, and I 
had simply to wait till a boat rose to the level of the 
stone abutments and then step directly on to the deck. 
The boats were empty and rode high on the water, and 
when the lock filled I looked down from quite an 
elevation. 

After the boats had all reached the upper level, they 
were tackled snuggly together and proceeded on their 
way. At first we passed through a gloomy tunnel under 
a portion of the city paving, and then on beneath an 
occasional bridge until we reached the open country. 
But our view was still circumscribed, for the waterway 
was in a rocky cut, the walls of which had no gaps to 
allow a glimpse beyond. A clear September sun was 
shining, and we found the weather uncomfortably 
warm. 

"I can tell you it's good and hot here in summer," 
remarked the captain. "You see there's never no wind 
through this rock cut. I'll invite you down in my cabin 
when I get it cleaned up. It's cool there. " 

The cleaning was soon done, and I descended the 
steep narrow stairs. It was a pleasant change from the 
outer glare and heat, and except for a horsey odor the 
air was sweet and pure. I had not appreciated before 



24 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

how smoothly we moved along. The motion was 
scarcely perceptible, and I only realized that we were 
going forward when I caught glimpses of tree-tops 
through the window screens. The apartment was small, 
and space was economized to the utmost. In one corner 
was a cookstove that could be shut away by sliding 
doors, in another corner was a folding bed, and in a 
third corner was a couch. Cupboards and drawers 
occupied every niche, and a table and several chairs 
besides the other furniture mentioned left very little 
free floor space. 

Most captains are married and the wife goes along to 
cook, and they are likely to have their children travel- 
ling with them. But "Cap'n Jim," as his crew called 
him, was a bachelor, and he was doing his own cooking 
this trip. On the trip previous he had carried a hired 
cook — a rather erratic and headstrong young woman 
who had not been an unqualified success. "Her cooking 
was all right," the captain acknowledged. "The main 
trouble was that she talked too blame much. I had an 
argument with her one day and threatened to throw 
her overboard. So when we reached port she went off 
in a huff. The cooking in addition to my other work 
keeps me pretty busy. We're hearty eaters, and I have 
to get meat and potatoes three times a day. Bacon and 
ham and salt pork are our standbys in the meat line; 
but there are places along where we get steak, and we 
often buy sweet corn and other garden truck. The 
prices are way up for most of the food we use. I had to 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 25 

buy some butter yesterday. It cost me thirty-six cents 
a pound; but down in New York City I got as good 
butter as anyone would want to put in his mouth for 
twenty-eight cents. " 

On the cabin walls were a gaudy advertising calendar, 
a colored home scene, and photographs of an old- 
fashioned looking man and woman — the captain's father 
and mother. "They made canal-boating their busi- 
ness," said he, *'and I was born and brought up on the 
canal. I had to stay on shore and go to school when I 
was a small boy, but later, until I was about twenty, I 
was on the canal summers and went to school winters. 
I began driving by the time I was eleven. We had one 
canal boat, and four mules, which we used two at a time. 
During the day I'd generally follow the mules on foot, 
but at night I'd be riding on one of 'em half the time." 

Cap'n Jim had started a fire in the stove and was 
peeling potatoes. Now he rose and looked out of the 
hatchway to see that everything was going all right. 
Martin was steering and Johnny was on the towpath. 
The two remaining members of the crew, Patrick, 
or "Paddy" as his mates usually called him, and 
"Whitey," were asleep in one of the other cabins. 
Whitey, whose nickname referred to his tow-colored 
hair, was employed for the season, and so was Paddy. 
The other two were "trippers," and they simply went 
back and forth between the western canal terminus at 
Buffalo and the eastern one at Troy. While the boats 
journeyed on the Hudson to and from New York these 



26 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

extra men were not needed. Neither were they needed 
for loading or unloading. It was the same on all the 
canal-boats. A full crew was kept only when the mules 
were on the towpath. 

"It's like this," observed the captain, after he had 
returned to his potato-paring; "canal-boating is expen- 
sive, and we have to save where we can. There's only a 
five months' season. That's the worst of this business; 
and your mules eat the year round, though in the winter 
they don't do nothing to earn you a cent. My expenses 
with these three boats average fifteen dollars a day 
while I'm on the canal. In port that figure is cut down 
some. The trippers wouldn't be worth their salt then, 
even if I kept 'em. They'd be around the saloons all 
the time. Most of 'em are hard drinkers, and they are 
not apt to be in condition to do good work when you 
take 'em on. I have to kind of doctor 'em up as we're 
getting out of port; and no sooner do we reach the end 
of our voyage than they bother the life out of me till 
they get their money so they can go on another booze. 

"The fellow who's steering now used to have a 
grocery in Utica, but it went down his neck — he drank 
all his property. He's intelligent, educated, and 
capable, and he has good family connections, yet he's 
a hopeless bum. He didn't have a cent when I picked 
him up in Troy this time. He was down and out, you 
might say. All he had was the clothes that are on his 
back, and some of those are mine. 

"But I can say this for the trippers — they're not 




Dinner preparations 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 27 

selfish or mean. They'll always hand out a quarter or a 
half dollar to a comrade who's broke, if they have it. 

"I paid a young fellow off in Buffalo last summer — 
gave him forty dollars, and the next morning he hadn't 
a cent. He'd gone on a spree, and dropped down in the 
back room of a saloon to sleep, and some of the hangers- 
on of the place took what money he had left. They 
even stole his shoes, so he was barefoot. That sort of 
thing is liable to happen to most of 'em. 

"If you was to discharge a tripper between ports he'd 
think it was terrible, but they quit you any time they 
please. They're makin' the best of wages all summer, 
and in the fall, which is the time when freighting on the 
canal is most rushing and profitable, we have to pay 'em 
three or four dollars a day and board. Good mechanics 
with tools don't get the wages these fellows do. Yet it 
all goes. In the winter they're off in the woods and all 
over at work, if they do work. A good many are sup- 
ported in cold weather by the taxpayers. They go to 
jail purposely — get drunk, you know, and create just 
enough disturbance to be sent up till spring. " 

Dinner preparations steadily progressed while the 
captain talked, and presently he summoned the two 
sleepers. When they joined us we sat down at the table 
and had a good square meal, except there was no dessert. 
As to that Cap'n Jim remarked jokingly, "I don't feed 
the men pie because it makes the drivers' feet sore. " 

After we finished eating, the boats were brought to a 
stop beside the towpath, and the mules were changed. 



28 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

In the bow of the foremost boat was a little stable cabin. 
It only projected slightly above the deck, and the mules 
quartered there were in what would be equivalent to a 
cellar hole on land. The entire six could be packed into 
this cabin, but during the canal voyage they took turns, 
three and three. On the deck was a light, strong bridge, 
one end of which was now slid down to the towpath, 
and the other end adjusted against the edge of the boat 
opposite a scuttle in the stable cabin. Down into the 
cabin itself extended a slatted gangway, and the mules 
climbed in and out much as if they were going up and 
over the ridge of a house. As each of the mules from the 
towpath came up the bridge the driver followed, hang- 
ing on to the creature's tail. This was supposed to steer 
it and keep it to the narrow path of safety. But a canal- 
boatman whom I later met in Buffalo and questioned 
about this custom said: "Oh, that's all nonsense! Of 
course you have to learn 'em to go in and out, but when 
you've got 'em learnt, the less guiding you do the better. 
They can take care of themselves much better than you 
can do it for them. I tell you there's many an accident 
on the canal that's blamed on the poor mules when the 
real fault lies with the driver or owner. " 

After the mules came on board the driver watered 
and fed them, and the captain rubbed a healing mixture 
on their sore shoulders. They always have sore shoul- 
ders owing to the chafing of their heavy collars, and the 
raw red patches seemed to argue that they led a hard 
life and did not last long. Cap'n Jim, however, affirmed 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 29 

that the facts did not support such an inference. "To 
be sure this ain't no soft job," he commented, "and 
that's the reason comparatively few horses are used. 
They can't stand it like mules, and yet I've knowed of 
a horse that towed for twenty-one years. Really 
there's no stock so well taken care of as canal stock. I 
rub my mules' shoulders every time they come off the 
towpath, and each time, too, I scrape and dry their 
collars. They work six hours at a stretch, covering in 
that time about ten miles. We keep going day and 
night on the canal, but there's usually several days' rest 
when we get to port. At the New York end the rest is 
often a little too long. The mules stay right there in 
the cabin and eat. They can't move around to get any 
exercise, and that makes it come harder on them when 
they get back to the towpath. 

"They are mostly pretty steady and give us little 
trouble. But once in a while a mule will object to 
climbing up the bridge. One of ours got balky and 
backed off the bridge into the water last spring. We 
got him out of the canal, but we couldn't induce him to 
go near the bridge again. The weather was cold and it 
was snowing and blowing, and in order not to have the 
mule sick we blanketed him and walked him up and 
down the towpath all night. 

"Once in a while a team is drowned. As a general 
thing the mules drown each other. A single animal 
would swim, but when they are hooked together they 
get tangled up in the harness and the tow-rope, and it 



30 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

ain't easy for us to help them, or for the mules to help 
themselves. Sometimes we rescue one, sometimes two, 
but usually we lose 'em all. " 

Martin and Johnny were now eating dinner, while 
Whitey was at the wheel, and Paddy was on the tow- 
path following the mules. The animals were hitched 
abreast, and tugged steadily at the long rope. They 
did not require much urging or guiding. At times the 
driver laid hold of the rope and got a little relaxation 
by letting them pull him along. Once when I looked 
in his direction he was nowhere in sight. But Whitey 
pointed to a rude barn-like saloon by the towpath and 
said, "I guess he's gone in there to take a snifter. " 

Sure enough, he soon came out of the door, wiped his 
mouth on his sleeve, and at a hurried, hobbling gait 
went along after the mules, shouting, and shaking his 
whip, for they had just then left the towpath to seek the 
shade of a wayside tree. 

We were in the open country now, and the channel 
was bordered by grassy banks brightened with asters 
and goldenrod. We could see farmhouses, and big 
barns, and ample straw stacks, and sometimes a village 
cluster with a church spire thrusting up above the 
environing foliage. Often a country road bordered the 
"heelpath" side of the canal, as that side is called 
opposite the towpath, and there were teams driving 
along, and we could see men working in the fields, and 
children playing about the houses. Rowboats were 
hitched by the shore, and the farm ducks paddled about 




Steering a mule to the cabin stable 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 31 

on the sluggish current. Occasionally we disturbed the 
meditations of a kingfisher, and it uttered its stuttering 
cry and sped away in jerking flight. Once or twice we 
saw a long-legged crane, or "shikepoke," flopping 
soberly on its way high up in the air. "Oh, there's all 
kinds of birds along the canal," said Whitey. "We see 
lots of 'em every day, and at night when we get in the 
woods we hear the screech owls. Last fall pheasants 
were plenty. I saw one fellow who had nearly two 
dozen. Pheasants are fine eating. They got chicken 
beat out of sight. " 

Just then we heard the report of a gun and observed 
a hunter on the heelpath shore. "He's after some of 
those yellow-legged snipe," aflfirmed Whitey. "It's 
kind of wild on that side along here, and the mud and 
flags and bushes suit the snipe exactly." 

I had often seen the snipe during the day running 
along by the water's edge. They have a nervous excited 
way about them, and are always making little flights 
from one spot to another, never seeming to be satisfied 
with the place where they happen to be. 

"Now we're coming to a low bridge," Whitey in- 
formed me. "You'll have to get off the roof of the 
cabin where you're sitting and stoop down. Do you 
see that long deep scratch in the roof planks.^ There's a 
bridge so darn low back here at Twelve Acre Level that 
we struck it. The water's high just now, but in that 
long dry spell in the summer it got down so the loaded 
boats could hardly navigate. Some of 'em had to wait 



32 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

for a rise. The more water there is the easier the boats 
slip along. They're enlarging the canal now, and in- 
creasing the depth from nine to twelve feet. When you 
pass from the old depth to the new you can tell the 
difference right off in the way the boats tow — you bet 
you can! 

"The state is spending one hundred and ten millions 
on the job, and in places the canal is all torn up. The 
work pays good wages to a very large number of men, 
but it makes a dickens of a lot of trouble for us. Prob- 
ably the money'U be all spent before the job is anywhere 
near done, and then the voters will be asked for more. 
That's the way usually. 

"Besides deepening the canal they're increasing the 
width at the bottom from fifty-two to seventy-five 
feet. That will fit it for boats four times as large as 
these. I expect power boats will be used altogether, 
and towing with mules will be a thing of the past. The 
present boat-owners will hardly be able to make such a 
large investment as the new boats will require, and the 
railroads or some big company will take up the business. 
Well, I sha'n't mourn any. Canal work, as things are, 
is a little too strenuous. We work six hours to a trick, 
and that means you've got to be out half the night. 
Sundays are just the same as any other day on most 
boats. But once in a while you find kind of a religious 
crank who ties up. There's only two such captains on 
the canal at present, and that sort never was numerous. 
This job would be all right, in spite of the Sunday 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 33 

work, if a fellow could go to bed at seven o'clock in the 
evening and stay there till morning; but you are not 
even sure of having the time you're oflF your trick undis- 
turbed. Things happen so your help is needed, and 
aside from the times that can't be foreseen, we're all 
called out, except one driver, every time there's a lock 
to work through. It's no joke, when the weather's 
nice and frosty, to have to leave your warm bed at three 
o'clock in the morning, for instance. There are seventy- 
two locks on the canal, from one to five in a place, and 
you can judge that we're routed out pretty often; but 
we never make up for work overtime on this blanked 
job. If I complain to the Cap'n about my hours being 
broken into, he says, * You'll have all the rest you want 
down on the river.' 

*'Well, we do take it easy when we get to the Hudson 
and while we are in New York. All I have to do down 
in the city after I get up in the morning is to wash off 
the decks, and that only takes about fifteen minutes. 
Those decks have to be washed off every day, no matter 
where we are, and clean or no clean. That done, I sit 
down and read the paper, and I usually spend the rest 
of the day loafing around the boat. But when night 
comes I walk up street and take in the shows on the 
Bowery and everything. I never save any money in 
New York. Sometimes we're there for a week or more 
before what we carry is unloaded. Often, too, we have 
to wait a few days in Buffalo. This time, though, we've 
got a cargo of grain all engaged. We'll reach port about 



34 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

midnight. Then it'll take us an hour or so to get every- 
thing in shape for loading. After that we can go to bed, 
but we must turn out as soon as breakfast Is ready in the 
morning. The Cap'n has been joking us and saying if 
we want a shave we'd better wake up the barber after 
we get to Buffalo tonight. You see, it only takes a little 
while to load. If they use two spouts at the grain 
elevator they can fill a boat in half an hour. As soon as 
we are loaded, off we'll start. So our trippers will go 
back with us this time. Usually they receive their pay, 
and have a spree, and get away on some other boat 
before the one they came on is ready to leave. 

"I don't know what would become of me if I wa'n't 
on the canal summers. I work every day in winter, and 
yet I can't save enough to buy a pair of shoes, because 
in the evenings I find it so easy to spend all I earn. 
Oh, this is better than any shore job. I get hardly a 
chance to spend a cent on the canal trips." 

About this time we met one tow and passed another. 
The former consisted of two boats piled above and below 
decks with lumber, and the latter was a three-boat 
tow of gravel, sunk low in the water and toiling along 
much slower than we were. For a little while things 
were quite exciting. We were only slightly discom- 
moded ourselves, but the tow-rope of the lumber boats 
got caught on the bottom of a gravel boat, and there 
was much shouting and swearing. The mules of the 
entangled boats were hastily untackled to keep them 
from being dragged into the canal, and the drivers ran 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 35 

hither and thither taking care of their teams and mak- 
ing various attempts to prevent their ropes from sliding 
into the water beyond reach. Everybody was blaming 
everybody else with no end of rough language, while as 
a matter of fact no one was seriously at fault. Just how 
the tows untangled themselves I did not see, for we 
went steadily on our way and soon turned a bend that 
shut off our view of them. 

"Those lumber boats was in the same tow with us 
going down the Hudson not long ago," said Whitey. 
"We visited back and forth, and I used to talk politics 
with the lumber cap'n. He's nervous and excitable, 
and a red-hot Republican. Oh, I had him jumping 
around like a game-cock." 

On the other side of the canal was an abandoned boat 
half full of water and deeply imbedded in the mud. I 
asked Whitey what had happened to it. "She got too 
old, and they put her in the burying ground," was his 
reply. 

We were now in a region where the wind had a clear 
sweep across the low flat land adjacent, and this made 
the navigating of our empty fleet difficult. However, 
we got along fairly well until we met a tow which 
bumped us against the bank. We were brought to a 
stop with the bow of one of our boats firmly lodged on 
some rocks. A stout plank with a rope attached to it 
was gotten out from below deck, Paddy on the towpath 
adjusted it, and heaved at it with his shoulder, while 
the rest of us pulled on the rope. I began to fear we 



36 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

were stranded for good, but after the pry had been 
shifted several times our exertions were rewarded and 
we freed ourselves. 

"We're in Tonawanda Crick," observed Cap'n Jim, 
"and it's so exposed here, and there's such sharp turns, 
that we sometimes have to tie up when the wind blows 
hard. Other times we are bothered here by fog. No- 
body will run in a fog on this crick, except a few crazy 
guys who won't stop for anything." 

A little farther on we halted to change mules. The 
normal time for this evening change was seven o'clock, 
and such was the time indicated by the cabin clock, but 
Cap'n Jim said he kept his timepiece set a half hour fast 
at this season of the year so the mules could be changed 
by daylight. Near by was a village, and there were 
children playing on the towpath. Some of them began 
to swing on a rope that extended from our boats to a 
tree. Whitey, after watching their antics for a few 
minutes, amused himself by suddenly loosening the 
rope and sending the astonished youngsters sprawling 
in the dirt. 

We soon resumed our journey. A lighted electric 
car was speeding along on the other side of the cana). 
Whitey looked at it longingly. "We've still got a hard 
five-hour pull before us," said he. "I wish we were on 
that car. It would take us to Buffalo in jig time. " 

When we approached Tonawanda the sun had gone 
down, the radiant afterglow was fading from the sky, 
and the sober shades of night were thickening over the 



A Voyage on the Erie Canal 37 

wide landscape. As we were nearing the center of the 
busy town a young woman hailed us from a sidewalk 
beyond the towpath, and she kept pace with the boats 
while the captain called back and carried on a conversa- 
tion with her. 

"That's our cook!" exclaimed Whitey, and he 
doubled up with merriment at thought of this unex- 
pected meeting and recollection of her lively ways on 
the boats. 

Cap'n Jim was negotiating to have her go the next 
trip with them; but whether he succeeded or not I do 
not know, for here my voyage ended. Martin, who was 
at the wheel, had brought the tow close to an abutted 
portion of the towpath that was of a height to allow me 
to safely jump down on it. I made the leap, and the 
boats swung off into mid-channel and went on their slow 
way into the evening gloom with never a pause. 

Note. — Anyone particularly desirous of making a canal-boat 
trip would probably find little difficulty in doing so; but most would 
no doubt prefer to content themselves with casual glimpses of the 
waterway and its boats from the banks. The canal is exceptionally 
interesting where it passes through Rochester, but is still more inter- 
esting at Lockport. Anyone wishing to go on board to see some- 
thing of the people and their home arrangements can do so most 
easily and comfortably by visiting the boats while they are in port 
at Buffalo, the western metropolis of the lakes. In the vicinity 
where the canal boats take on their loads, are numerous big elevators 
and these with the varied shipping make a scene of industry that is 
uncommonly fascinating. It was only after the construction of the 
canal that the city of Buffalo began to grow rapidly. The first 
dwelling for a white man was erected there in 1791. The name of 
the city is supposed to be derived from the herds of buffalo which 
frequented the creek that here enters the lake. 



Ill 



TRAGIC NIAGARA 



HE went over right there where you see that little 
depression, just about ten feet out from where 
we stand," said the man at my elbow. 
I was leaning on the iron railing that guards the 
borders of the falls on the American side, one among a 
crowd that had gathered in the neighborhood and 
divided into little groups intent on talking over this 
latest Niagara tragedy. 

"When did it happen .''" I asked. 

"Not quite an hour ago. I was here and I saw the 
whole thing. He was an old man with gray hair. I 
remember I noticed him a few minutes before, sitting on 
that first settee over there on the lawn. After a while 
he went down to those bushes at the end of this fence, 
where you see that sign, 'Do not venture in dangerous 
places.' He stopped there and took off his hat, and 
pulled out of his coat pocket a package done up in a 
napkin. A good many people were close around, but he 
didn't give us a chance to interfere. He just laid his hat 
on the ground with the package in it, pushed through 
the bushes and waded out into the water until the rapids 
carried him off his feet. The men on shore shouted, and 




The American Falls 



Tragic Niagara 39 

some of the women screamed, but we couldn't do any- 
thing, and in almost no time he was over the falls." 

Nothing was being done to recover the man's body, 
nor was there aught to suggest any unusual happening, 
and the tale seemed more myth than fact. I looked 
at the niche in the falls where the man had disappeared, 
and at the swift, clear waters that from time immemo- 
rial had been coursing down the incline and over the 
brink of the precipice exactly as I saw them that day. 
Below was a frightful abyss of foam and seething 
mists, and in that wild tumult a human life had been 
extinguished only an hour before. Yet the giant cataract 
gave forth no sign. The eternal flow went on, and the 
air was full of its roar, and the earth trembled with its 
power. There was something satanic in its might and 
its indifference. 

"Who was the man.?" I asked the acquaintance with 
whom I had been talking. 

"Some one from a town up in Canada, near Toronto. 
They found his name and address in the package he 
left." 

"What else was in the package.?" 

"Not much. A little money, I believe, and a pair of 
spectacles in a tin case. That's all, so far as I've heard. 
It's the first suicide in the river this year. The Indians 
have a tradition that the falls demand two human vic- 
tims every year. But it's been a long time since so few 
lives have been lost here. There's quite a number of 
river suicides every season. An odd thing about 'em 



40 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

is that when we have one, we're sure to have another 
within a very short time afterward. The first one 
seems to be a kind of reminder to people who have a 
fancy for that sort of performance. We had seven 
Niagara suicides last year, and in the city here there 
were nine others; but we local residents never end our 
lives in the river. The falls don't appeal to our imagi- 
nation as they do to strangers', and we know too well 
what rough treatment one's body is bound to get in 
these savage waters. The idea isn't pleasant. It's 
gruesome. It's horrid. We drown ourselves in the 
canal, hang ourselves, take poison, use a razor or revol- 
ver — anything but go into the river." 

"Is this particular spot a favorite one for suicides.^" 
I inquired. 

"No, I don't know that it is. They are liable to go in 
almost anywhere. They don't all go over the falls. 
Some jump from the bridges, and some into the Whirl- 
pool Rapids, a mile down the river. Of course, more or 
less of 'em are crazy, but most are just sick of life for 
some reason or other and come here with suicide all 
planned. Still, I think many cases are those of persons 
who simply get fascinated by the water and go in with- 
out any premeditation. I have a little of that 
feeling myself, standing here and seeing that water 
slide over the edge there and going down and down to 
such a great depth; and I know a man that's lately 
moved into the city who never lets his wife come here 
to have a look at the falls unless he's with her, and even 



Tragic Niagara 41 

then he walks on the water side of her to keep her from 
throwing herself in if she should happen to catch the 
impulse. 

"I suppose a good many drown themselves that we 
never know of. No one sees them do it, and they are 
never found afterward — at least, not so they can be 
identified. Take a person that goes over the falls, the 
chances are, if the body's ever recovered at all, it'll be 
picked up a week or two later down at the whirlpool, 
and it'll be pretty well mangled by then. That whirl- 
pool is a curious place. It's two miles below here, where 
the river makes a sudden turn, and a great basin has 
been gouged out there a thousand feet in diameter with 
immense cliffs and banks dark with evergreens all 
around. It's full of driftwood that can't seem to get 
away and just keeps everlastingly twisting and stewing 
there; and if you look down into the water with a spy- 
glass, you see a whole menagerie of horses, dogs, etc., 
that have floated down from Buffalo and other places. 

"Usually the suicides leave some articles behind by 
which they can be identified, just as this man did today, 
and it's kind of customary to write a farewell letter, 
but then we don't count it at all certain when we find 
one of those letters that anything serious has hap- 
pened. You see we have a lot of fake suicides, espe- 
cially over on Goat Island. They write a note and say 
they bid good-by to things earthly and are going over 
the falls; and they leave that note where it'll be picked 
up, and think it's a clever joke. 



42 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"I recall one man, though, who played that trick — 
not for a joke, but to get his life insurance. His name 
was Crandall. A while after his disappearance and the 
finding of the letter, a body was picked up down the 
river which his relations said was his, and they buried it 
in the family plot. They got his insurance all right; 
but some one saw Crandall himself the next year out in 
California, and finally they jailed him. 

"Occasionally an intended suicide is prevented. 
Some years ago, for instance, a man well along in years 
arrived here in company with a young woman. They 
were in love with each other, but as luck would have it, 
he had a wife already. So, as they couldn't marry and 
live together, they decided to come to Niagara and die 
together. But when they got here the girl's courage 
failed her. He was ready enough and her timidity 
riled him. They say he chased her all around the park 
here to make her jump in with him, and he'd have 
succeeded if the people hadn't interfered. 

"I tried my hand at preventing a suicide once. An 
intelligent middle-aged woman had come to stay a few 
days at a boarding house of which I'm the proprietor. 
She got here early in the morning and she stayed in her 
room all that day, only coming down to meals. I 
noticed from the first that she was dreadful melancholy, 
and her eyes were red with crying. 'Well,' I said to 
myself, *it looks mighty like as if she'd traveled here to 
make way with herself,' and I decided I'd watch her. 
But nothing happened until evening, when I met her 



Tragic Niagara 43 

in the hall with her wraps on. She said she guessed 
she'd take a little walk. I tried to dissuade her, but I 
couldn't. So I thought I'd tell my daughter to go 
along after her and not let her do herself any harm. My 
daughter was in another part of the house, and while I 
stepped back to speak to her the woman slipped out the 
front door and got away so quickly she had disappeared 
from sight by the time we ran out and looked for her 
on the street. I had an idea she might have left a letter 
in her room and I went up to see, but I couldn't find 
anything the least suspicious, and then my daughter 
and I both hurried down to the falls. It was a bright 
night with a full moon shining, but we didn't get track 
of the woman and came home feeling a good deal 
worried. But our fears were wasted, for about ten 
o'clock in she walked. 

"She'd been crying some more; still, she didn't seem 
as down-hearted as she had earlier, and instead of going 
to her room she sat down in the parlor and appeared to 
want to talk. Finally she told us her troubles. Seven- 
teen years before she had married, and she and her 
husband had visited Niagara and they had seen the 
falls by moonlight. Her husband didn't live but a short 
time, and since his death she'd always been thinking 
she'd go to Niagara again, and at last she'd come back 
on the seventeenth anniversary of their wedding. There 
was to be a moon that evening, and so sh^ kept to her 
room during the day and waited for it that she might 
repeat the old experience as nearly as possible; and she 



44 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

said, while it was sad, she found it very comforting." 

My acquaintance turned away now from the railing 
beside the giant leap of the waters, and prepared to 
return to the town. 

"Yes," he remarked in parting, "there are a good 
many strange stories of one sort and another connected 
with Niagara. It draws all kinds of people to it — 
people that are happy and people that are unhappy; 
and it plays about as important a part in human life 
as any phenomenon of nature you can find the world 
over. " 

I have dwelt on what this acquaintance said to me 
because the suicide of the old man so shortly preceding 
my arrival imparted to the falls a peculiar sentiment 
which did not wear off during my stay. What an un- 
feeling, all-powerful engine of destruction! Its might 
makes humanity seem infinitesimally small and weak. 
Yet, in spite of all its immensity and beauty and fear- 
someness, Niagara is to most at first sight disappointing. 
We have from childhood heard so much of it that we 
expect — we know not what, but at any rate, something 
different. This is not the fault of the cataract. The 
trouble is with our own impossible preconceptions. 
"Would I had never heard of Niagara," says Haw- 
thorne, "until I beheld it. Blessed were the wanderers 
of old who heard its deep sounding through the woods 
as a summons to its unknown wonder, and approached 
its awful brink in all the freshness of native feeling." 

One cannot but envy Father Hennepin, who was the 



Tragic Niagara 45 

first of the early explorers to see Niagara, and through 
whom its fame was soon widely disseminated in every 
civilized country. That was in 1678. Speaking of the 
river above the falls, the French priest says, "It is so 
rapid that it violently hurries down the wild beasts 
while endeavoring to pass it to feed on the other side, 
they not being able to withstand the force of its cur- 
rent;" and no wonder, for it makes a descent of fifty- 
five feet in a half mile. The cataract itself he describes 
as "a vast and prodigious cadence of water which falls 
down after . a surprising and astonishing manner, 
insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel;" 
and in another sentence he declares, "The waters which 
fall from this horrible precipice do foam and boyl after 
the most hideous manner imaginable, making an out- 
rageous noise, more terrible than that of thunder." 

So impressed was Father Hennepin that he estimated 
the "horrible precipice" to be 600 feet high. In reality 
it is 160 feet. Yet that is sufficient, so enormous is the 
volume of water, to represent a force equaling every 
twenty-four hours the world's daily output of coal. 
The energy of the combined water-wheels of the United 
States at the beginning of the twentieth century was 
not much above one million horse-power, while Niagara 
can furnish five or six times that amount. A trifling 
portion of this power has been utilized ever since 1725, 
but not until recent years has there been a serious 
attempt to actually "harness" Niagara. At present 
about one-tenth of the river water is diverted and passes 



46 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

through the great turbine wheels, and the resultant 
energy is transmitted to towns and manufactories for 
scores of miles around. Electrical power from here has 
long been utilized by Buffalo, twenty-six miles away, 
for running that city's entire trolley system. 

The falls are twenty-two miles from Lake Erie, and 
fourteen miles from Lake Ontario, measured by the 
course of the river. Not quite half the entire descent 
of the river is found in the perpendicular drop at the 
falls. Scientists affirm that the cataract began seven 
miles below its present location and that the water has 
been about thirty-five thousand years wearing back to 
where the falls are now. The river is divided at the 
cataract by Goat Island, on one side of which are the 
American Falls with a width of two hundred feet, and 
on the other side the Canadian or Horseshoe Falls, six 
hundred feet wide. 

Over one million people visit Niagara annually. 
They wander everywhere, but they congregate most 
thickly on Goat Island. During much of the year you 
find the roads and pathways of the pleasantly wooded 
isle thronged every day with sightseers, on foot, and in 
carriages and automobiles. One of the little islets that 
the drivers point out as they cross the massive stone 
bridge to Goat Island is Avery's Roek, a short distance 
down the stream. On it an unfortunate man found 
foothold for eighteen hours before being swept over the 
falls by the impact of a boat let out with ropes in an 
attempt to save him. 





Where La Salle launched the ''''Griffon'''' 



Tragic Niagara 47 

In places on Goat Island you can go to the very brink 
of the falls and gaze down into the mists of the abyss 
with their shreds of rainbow as brilliant in hue as ever 
were painted on a retreating shower. The up-river view 
has its share of charm, too; but you need to get some- 
what back from the cataract to fully appreciate the 
impressiveness of that always rushing flood of pure 
green water roaring down the terraced rocks, with 
swiftly smooth intervals between the ledges. 

The most superlative thrill possible to the visitor is 
furnished by the Cave of the Winds. At the edge of the 
falls, separated from the American side of Goat Island 
by a narrow torrent is little Luna Island, so named 
from the rainbows that are seen there when the moon 
is full, and back of the avalanche of water between the 
two isles the rock is sufficiently worn away to aff"ord a 
foot passage. .Before leaving the Goat Island clifftop, 
intending pilgrims to the cave array themselves in 
yellow oilcloth and put clumsy cloth moccasins on their 
feet. They look like freaks after the transformation, 
especially the women. The precipice is descended by a 
steep circular stairway in a wooden tower, and then 
there are paths that conduct the adventurers to a series 
of slender wooden bridges which enable them to pass 
from rock to rock in front of the foaming fall to Luna 
Island. After that they go through the driving mist 
back of the fall and emerge on a path amid the stones 
that form a steep slope buttressing the perpendicular 
cliff. Finally, when they have climbed the winding 



48 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

stairs, they photograph each other, resume civilized 
apparel, and very likely go off to carve their initials 
on the island trees. 

While the scenery around Niagara is flat and com- 
monplace, and the falls entirely lack the rugged and 
mountainous background that seems fitting, there is, to 
compensate, the gorge that the cataract has hewn 
through the solid rock, seven miles long and gradually 
deepening until toward its lower end its walls measure 
three hundred feet. The most striking portion of the 
gorge is its second mile, where the chasm contracts to a 
width of four hundred feet. The river here has a depth 
estimated at two hundred and fifty feet, and rushes 
through the narrow channel at the rate of forty miles 
an hour in a wild chaos of struggling, foaming waves 
and riotous spray. This lashing turmoil is known as 
the "Whirlpool Rapids," and so swift and confined is 
the immense volume of water that the surface assumes 
a convex form, and is distinctly higher in the middle 
than at the edges. 

Ever since early in the last century Niagara has been 
recognized as an ideal place for gaining publicity by 
feats of daring, and the chasm at the Whirlpool Rapids 
has been the chief scene of them. A favorite method of 
those individuals who choose this spot to acquaint the 
world with their intrepidity, has been to perform on a 
tight rope stretched over the gorge. Not only have 
such ropes been crossed again and again, but the 
athletes have walked with baskets on their feet, gone 



Tragic Niagara 49 

through various antics, and even cooked meals while 
poised on a single slender strand above that roaring, 
hungry torrent far down below. As if this was not 
sufficiently nerve-racking to the spectators, the famous 
Blondin carried a man across on his back. 

What has proved to be a still more dangerous form of 
amusement has come into vogue latterly. The fashion 
was set by a little steamer, the "Maid of the Mist," 
which had been built to cruise about the comparatively 
quiet water immediately below the falls. This steamer 
had become badly involved by debts, and seizure by 
the United States officials was imminent. To escape 
confiscation it must reach some Canadian lake port, 
which could only be done by going through the Whirl- 
pool Rapids. Three men were found willing to under- 
take this hazard, and on a June afternoon in 1861, to the 
surprise of everyone except the few who knew of the 
plan, the boat headed down the river under full steam. 
She encountered the savage buffeting of the waves 
bravely, and though she lost her smoke stack, passed 
through safely. 

In emulation of this escapade all sorts of trips have 
been made through the rapids, some by swimmers, 
some in boats, some in barrels; and in spite of a number 
of fatalities, new adventurers have continued to make 
the attempt. While I was at Niagara the passage made 
by a Chicago bookkeeper known as "Bowser," was 
still being talked about. In the summer of 1900 he 
came to the falls with a curious boat built on a plan of 



50 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

his own. He confided to certain persons in the city that 
he had for years been in the habit of spending his two 
weeks' vacation at Niagara. "Some folks have one 
hobby and some another," he said. "Mine is the 
Whirlpool Rapids. I've studied them for a long time 
and I think I understand them. There's no money up, 
and I'm not seeking notoriety. I'm going through 
simply for my personal satisfaction." 

His boat was twenty-one feet long, had air com- 
partments at the ends and sides, and with the excep- 
tion of the cockpit, was decked over; but its special 
feature was an iron keel of over half a ton in weight 
suspended on a rod six feet beneath the bottom. This 
keel served its purpose, and when Bowser made his 
dash through the rapids, the craft never lost its balance. 
It would ride over one wave and dive through the next, 
so that the man and boat were alternately in sight and 
buried in the frothing leaps of the mad current. The 
race lasted only a few minutes, and then Bowser came 
out in the whirlpool and began to twist and circle on 
its dark labyrinthine waters. He had a pair of oars 
fastened to the boat when he started, but the breakers 
in the rapids had torn them off, and he drifted about 
the whirlpool for two hours helpless. Crowds looked 
on from the high banks of the canyon, but they could 
do nothing; and Bowser was in constant terror lest the 
immense logs and other driftwood restlessly turning in 
those turbulent deeps should batter and wreck his frail 
craft. However, he at length floated near enough to 





Looking down on the Canadian Falls from Goat Island 



Tragic Niagara 51 

shore so that his boat was caught and he was rescued. 
He had had a plan half formed to go through the rapids 
again and take a companion, but now he decisively 
said that one experience of that sort would last him a 
lifetime. 

In 1902 a woman started down the rapids in a barrel, 
but she was caught in the whirlpool just as Bowser had 
been and circled there for six hours. She died shortly 
after being rescued. Yet a Mrs. Taylor accomplished 
the death-defying feat of going over the Horseshoe 
Falls in a barrel a year previous, and she lived to tell the 
tale. Of course, the barrels were specially constructed 
with plenty of padding and were heavily weighted to 
keep a certain side uppermost. 

This pitting oneself against the forces of nature 
seems to have a peculiar fascination, and in 1910 a 
Captain Larson braved the rapids in a motor boat. 
It was the general opinion that he would perish. For 
the benefit of the pleasure venders on the shores, who 
wanted he should draw as great a crowd as possible, 
the trip was made on a Sunday. He started at about 
five in the afternoon in the comparatively quiet water 
above the cantilever bridge. Soon he was in the swifter 
current amid the wildly tossing waves. Most of the 
time he was lost to sight, yet at one point was shot 
twenty feet out of the water. In three minutes he had 
reached the whirlpool, where he kept to the outer edge 
and went on. Now, however, the engine stopped work- 
ing, and he was at the mercy of the waters, which were 



52 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

hardly less violent than those above. The little craft 
swung around stern first, and then turned completely 
over. Larson came up badly battered, and was swept 
on, the plaything of the mighty river. Once the boat 
stuck fast between two boulders, and Larson stayed 
there five minutes working desperately to free it. Again 
he went careening on his unguided course. The Lewis- 
ton bridge was in sight when he was caught in a shore 
eddy and grounded. Several men ran to his assistance. 
He wished to continue his voyage to the very end now 
that the worst was over, but they persuaded him to 
land. 

The nearest approach to such a trip that is within 
the reach of the ordinary visitor to Niagara, is a voyage 
on the "Maid of the Mist," a successor of the maid 
that ran away. The waters on which you cruise are 
far gentler than those of the Whirlpool Rapids, yet 
they are still so rude you wonder that little duckling of 
a steamer should have the temerity to venture on their 
foam-streaked turmoil. Hour after hour, the season 
through, it makes its trips, dashing into the very heart 
of the falls. The passengers are clad from head to foot 
with heavy rubber garments furnished on board, else 
they would be drenched by the flying spray of the cata- 
ract. Again and again the tiny vessel charges into the 
seething froth churned up by the flood coming over 
those vast perpendicular precipices. It careens and 
tosses about in a manner very suggestive of danger, 
but this seems a part of the spectacle, and furnishes a 



Tragic Niagara 53 

spice that is welcome rather than otherwise. As for the 
uplook from the deck at that lofty wall of water, green 
on the verge, then opaline and shading delicately into 
snowy white and vapory void, nothing excels it in the 
whole round of Niagara sightseeing. Visitors, after 
this trip, even if their first views have disappointed 
them, can hardly fail to bring away a satisfying idea of 
Niagara's immensity and grandeur, and the assurance 
that they have seen one of the marvels of the world. 

Note. — Few regions in America contain more attractions within 
as narrow a compass, and all so easily accessible, as does the vicinity 
of Niagara. It is possible to see the chief points of interest in a day, 
but several days are preferable. The best months for visiting the 
Falls are May and June and September and October. The weather 
is then reasonably comfortable, and the crowds of midsummer are 
avoided. If possible make a visit also to see the Falls in all the glory 
of their winter dress. There are many points of vantage from which 
the Falls can be viewed, and each of these points has its own peculiar 
charm. See them from both shores, from the islands, and from the 
little steamer, and descend the Goat Island cliffs and look at them 
from the foot of the declivity with a wild foreground of rocks, bushes, 
and gnarled trees. For a thrill visit the Cave of the Winds. Walking 
is for most people the best method of satisfactorily seeing the sights 
in the immediate vicinity of the Falls. The miles of rapids and the 
gorge below can be viewed by taking the "belt line" of electric cars 
which make a circuit, going one way on the Canadian bluff, and the 
other in the chasm. Stops are made at all places of special interest. 

Several battlegrounds in the region can easily be visited. One of 
these is in the chasm itself at what is known as the Devil's Hole, 
where an Indian massacre occurred in 1 763 . But the most important 
battlefield is that of Lunday^s Lane not far back from the Falls on 
the Canadian side. 



54 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Down where the river joins the lake is old Fort Niagara, histor- 
cially famous, and quaintly beautiful with its massive walls, its 
blockhouses, and fine outlook on the water. 

About eight miles northeast of the Falls is the reservation of the 
Tuscarora Indians, and a leisurely sojourner in the region will do 
well to visit it. 

One of the most notable historic spots on the river is a few 
miles above the Falls just outside the village of La Salle. Here, in 
the winter of 1678-9, near the mouth of Cayuga Creek, the explorer 
whose name the village bears built the Griffon, the first sailing vessel 
that ever navigated the lakes. 

Still farther up the river is Tonawanda, the greatest lumber dis- 
tributing town in the world. The lumber piles line the shore for 
miles, and the vessels that bring the lumber are constantly arriving 
from the upper lakes all through the navigation season. In 1890 
there was unloaded at these wharves over seven hundred million 
feet, but the lake region is no longer the source of timber supply it 
was formerly, and the amount handled at Tonawanda had long been 
dwindling. 



IV 



THE PENNSYLVANIA SHORE 



PENNSYLVANIA'S coast line is limited to a strip 
on Lake Erie about fifty miles long; and the most 
populous town in the strip is the city with the 
same name as the lake. Erie is a thriving railroad and 
industrial center, but what drew me to it more particu- 
larly was its importance as a fishing port. Of all the 
group of Great Lakes, Erie ranks first as a fish producer, 
and vast quantities of the fish that are caught are 
brought in to the city of Erie to be dressed and packed 
and sent away to other markets. I fancied therefore 
that the wharves about the fish houses would present a 
scene of noisy, busy confusion. But I found neither 
crowd nor bustle, nor even an attractive picturesque- 
ness. The fish houses were clean and sweet, though 
there was often much in their vicinity that was dubious 
to both sight and smell. Comparatively few men, 
laboring with orderly dispatch, seemed to meet all the 
requirements for handling the fish. Perhaps the feature 
of the wharves that most appealed to the eye was the 
nets drying on great reels. The boats were rather 
prosaic small tugs or gasoline launches. I stopped to 
watch one of the boats unload the fish that lay in com- 
partments in the bottom. As the men tossed them up 



56 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

on the wharf they were sorted into boxes according to 
kind and trundled away into the fish houses; and how 
beautiful they were — those jewels of the water with 
their glistening scales! 

A man in rubber boots had seated himself on a 
wheelbarrow near by, and was smoking his pipe and 
intermittently spitting. I spoke to him and learned that 
he was an old hand at the fish business. "Yes," he 
said, "it so happens that a man has got to work for the 
pleasure of having something to eat and keep himself 
from starving to death, and I took up fishing. This is a 
good place to get employment in that line. There's 
lots of diff"erent fish companies here, and I've counted 
thirty fish tugs all in a row at the same time along our 
wharves, and that wa'n't half of 'em. 

"The boats leave here at five or six in the morning, 
and they're generally back by noon. You see that pen- 
insula over across the harbor. Wall, the fishing grounds 
begin a few miles beyond that, but twenty-five miles 
ain't too fur to go to set nets. Most of the boats are 
owned by the fish companies, and the help are paid good 
wages, but the men who make the most are on boats of 
their own. I've known a crew of four or five to ketch 
three ton in one day. They make a nice thing out of it, 
and during a season there's a profit for each man of from 
a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars. In the winter 
the fishermen work in shops or filling ice houses. 

"Most of them are Americans, and fishing ain't no 
soft job either. There's a pile of work in this business, 




-5i 



-Si 



The Pennsylvania Shore 57 

and considerable danger. Sometimes the weather is so 
rough the boats won't go out, and if the bad weather 
continues for several days, a good many of the fish that 
had got caught in the nets are no good, and maybe the 
nets are all torn to the dickens, too. There's been tugs 
sunk and the captain and all the crew lost. 

"I came near getting drownded myself out here in the 
bay last summer. I and another feller was in a rowboat 
over near the peninsula fishing. By and by we noticed 
the clouds a-gathering, and it began to get dark all of a 
sudden. 'There's a big storm comin," I says. 'We'd 
better pull to shore.' 

"Wall, sir, you have no idea how quick that water 
got rough. It wa'n't five minutes before the waves 
were rolling six feet high, and no sooner did we strike 
the land than the boat filled with water. But we got 
out safe, and hauled the boat up on the shore. Quite a 
few men lost their lives in that storm. " 

To the east of the city for scores of miles the most 
notable crop on the farmlands is grapes. I had seen 
the almost unending vineyards from the car window, 
and was eager to make a more intimate acquaintance 
with the grape region. A half hour's trolley ride took 
me into the fertile prosperous farming country, mostly 
level, but rising three or four miles back from the lake 
into a long gullied ridge. The ridge was by no means 
lofty, yet, to quote one of the natives, "The streams to 
the south of it flow to the Ohio, and those to the north 



58 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

to the lake, and the waters divided by that ridge have 
to go around the world before they meet again. " 

I left the electric road and went for a long walk, much 
of the time with vineyards on either side of the high- 
way. The grapevines were trained to grow on a double 
line of wires fastened to posts, and the rows of posts 
were far enough apart to admit air and sunshine freely 
and to allow ploughing and cultivating. When I had 
rambled so far on the dusty roads that I began to tire of 
walking I stopped to talk with a stoop-shouldered old 
man who was on a piazza reading a newspaper. 

"I was one of the first grape-farmers in this vicinity," 
said he, "but in early life my home was in western 
Massachusetts. I taught school there for ten years, 
and then I had to quit on account of havin' the dis- 
pepsy. So I took me a wife and came out here to visit 
my brother who was farmin' it on the shore of Lake 
Erie. I couldn't work, and I didn't seem to be gettin' 
a bit better, though this is as healthy a country as there 
is anywhere. By and by my brother says, ^I know a 
doctor who can cure you.' 

"We went to see the doctor, and he told me he'd fix 
up some medicine. 'I'd like it if you'd make out a 
prescription,' says I, 'so I can go to a druggist's and get 
more after what you put up is gone. ' 

'No need of that,' he says. 'I'll give you enough 
to cure you.' 

"Then I got anxious about what he was goin' to 
charge. I knew that one of the other teachers at the 



The Pennsylvania Shore 59 

school where I taught had gone to a doctor — a city- 
doctor it was — to get cured of the same complaint, and 
the doctor's medicine cost him twenty-five dollars. 
Even with all that expense, I'm not sure as he was cured. 
When I asked the doctor how much I owed, he said, 
*A dollar and a half.' 

"I was relieved, I can tell you; and the medicine 
made me a well man. 

"I'd been teachin' at a boardin' school. It was no 
wonder we had the dispepsy there. We were settin' 
around at our work most of the time, and they didn't 
keep us very well. Hot griddle-cakes was served often, 
and quite a number of times we'd have for supper just 
soft raw bread that we couldn't eat and digest, and so 
we'd go to bed hungry. You see the man who ran the 
school had married an old school-teacher who couldn't 
cook. I guess her cookin' killed him. Anyway, he's 
dead and I'm still alive. 

"I thought outdoor work was better than indoor 
work for me, and I bought a farm here and went to 
dairyin'. That was durin' the Civil War. When the 
war broke up, butter went down to fifteen or twenty 
cents a pound, and it seemed to me I could raise a 
basket of grapes easier than I could a pound of butter. 
I gave up dairyin' and started a vineyard. People 
around here at that time were raisin' wheat, barley, oats 
and that kind of crops. They sold to speculators who 
kept the price down, and I concluded they couldn't be 
makin' much. Brocton, fifty miles to the east, was 



6o Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

the only grape-raisin' town then, and it was claimed 
they had the whole thing down that way, and grapes 
couldn't be raised to advantage anywhere else along the 
Erie shore. But my grapes were as bright and nice as 
Brocton grapes, only perhaps a leetle mite later, and 
as soon as people saw what I'd done there was a great 
hooraw to set out vineyards. 

"Most of the time we've found grapes a money- 
makin' crop. Occasionally, though, the price gets 
pretty low, or the frost ketches us. I remember one 
fall when we had an early cold snap a man went to 
my son-in-law, who was freight agent, and says: ^I've 
got seventeen acres of grapes, and last night they froze. 
They're just solid balls. What can I do with 'em?' 

" 'Well,' says my son-in-law, Til tell you what to 
do. Pick 'em at once. They'll soon drop off if you 
don't. Then ship 'em and take your chances.' 

"The man filled a car, and told my son-in-law he'd 
rather accept a small price right where they were than 
risk gettin' still less by shippin'. 

" 'Then sell them to me,' says my son-in-law. 'I'll 
give you five cents a basket.' 

"The man was satisfied, and he let others know of 
his bargain, and they hurried to bring in their frozen 
grapes. By Saturday night my son-in-law had 
twelve car-loads, and everybody thought he was goin' 
to lose a fortune. Instead of that he made three thou- 
sand dollars, and he said he'd rather deal in frozen 
grapes than any other sort. They're kind o' soft and 



The Pennsylvania Shore 6l 

flat tastin', but they do very well for wine purposes. 

"Grapes are not as easily raised as perhaps you might 
imagine. They draw so much from the land that it's 
necessary to fertilize heavily; and you have to spray 
'em again and again every season. There's a good 
many insect pests that need lookin' after — rose bugs, 
leaf hoppers and such things. We have to hire consider- 
able help, and help is expensive and requires watchin'. 
If you've got anybody workin' for you it's your business 
to be around. You set a hired man to ploughin' among 
the grapevines without oversight, and you'll find him 
tearin' up the roots, jammin' into the vines, and raisin' 
the mischief generally. 

"You see that air yellow house down the road. The 
man who lives there has a hundred acres in vineyards, 
and he cultivates a lot more land. This is a good soil 
and climate for all sorts of fruits and crops, and you'll 
often see orchards of peach, plum or cherry trees, and 
fields of buckwheat, corn, clover, and beans, and we 
grow a good many berries. Any fruit does well here if 
you take care of it. This ridge that runs along parallel 
with the lake seems to give us a long, mild autumn. 
The heat which the great body of lake water absorbs 
during the summer is given off gradually, and the ridge 
keeps the warm air right here. I've made up my mind 
there's only one better place than this, and that's the 
beyond, and I'm in no hurry about exchangin' this for 
that either." 

The afternoon was well advanced when I returned to 



62 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

the highway. I went on while the shadows lengthened, 
and the air grew gray with the approach of night. Then 
I stopped at a wayside home and engaged lodging. The 
house was an old one, but had been well cared-for. 
The barn, however, was a big, gray structure that was 
quite decrepit. It was a relic of the dairy period of the 
region. The farm family consisted of only a young man 
and his wife, both hard-working and intelligent. The 
former was busy about his evening work, and I kept him 
company while he milked his three cows where they 
stood in a row in the dusky stable. The milk was 
streaming steadily into the foaming pail when a cat 
came in unobserved and brushed against the cow behind 
him. Instantly the cow gave a savage kick. The cat 
got out of harm's way like a flash, but the cow's hoof 
caught in one of the milker's rear trousers' pockets 
and made a tear in the garment a foot long. He investi- 
gated the extent of the damage, made a few pithy 
remarks suited to the occasion, and went on with his 
milking. Presently he carried the milk to the house, 
and after he had run it through a separator in the back- 
room, his wife set away the cream, and he took the 
skim milk out to feed a calf and a family of pigs. 

There were various other small jobs to be done, in- 
cluding the chopping up and bringing in some wood for 
the stove, and it was seven o'clock when we sat down 
to supper. We had the company of "Uncle Gilbert," 
an elderly relative and former resident of the vicinity, 



The Pennsylvania Shore 63 

who was visiting them for a few days. He addressed 
his nephew and niece as Harvey and Nellie. 

"I hope we can have a gas well another year," said 
Nellie. "I don't like the bother of a wood or coal fire." 

"And I'm sure I don't enjoy skirmishin' around after 
the fuel," remarked Harvey. "But to bore a well 
costs five hundred dollars, and sometimes you don't 
get the gas. However, there's nine or ten families 
right on this road within a mile who have gas wells that 
light and heat their houses the year round. Each family 
has its own well. You might think one good well would 
supply several homes that were near together, but the 
owner is too afraid it will play out quicker if he sells to 
the neighbors. We have to go down nearly a thousand 
feet to strike the layer that contains gas. The best 
supply is found close along the lake. Six miles south 
of here a gas well is a rarity." 

"One advantage of gas," said Nellie, "is that you 
don't need to have any woodpile litter in the yard. All 
you see above ground is a cylinder tank about a foot 
through and perhaps ten feet long. I was used to gas at 
my old home, and I had great times when I began 
housekeeping here. I'd forget my fire, and the first 
thing I knew it would be out. So I'd be always bringing 
in kindling wood to start it. When you have gas jets 
in your stove the fire takes care of itself. Besides, as 
things are now we're obliged to use lamps and it's a 
nuisance to clean and fill them. Oh, there's lots of 
work and expense if you are without natural gas." 



a 
a 
it 



64 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Uncle Gilbert finished supper before the rest of us, 
and he got up, took off his coat to be comfortable, lit a 
cigar, and sat down with his chair tilted back against 
the wall. He was a very deliberate man who weighed 
his words well before he spoke, and announced his 
opinions with an air of finality. "These are very good 
cigars of yours, Harvey," said he, "and I shall enjoy 
them as long as they last." 

"So you've given all your cigars to Uncle Gilbert, 
have you?" asked Nellie. 

Yes," responded Harvey, "I sha'n't use any more." 
Why, what has happened?" I inquired. 
Well," said Harvey, "IVe quit smokin'. I was 
converted one night lately at a tent-meetin' near here. 
It's been my habit to carry cigars with me, and I had 
one in my pocket then. As I was comin' out the 
tent I wanted it, but I said to myself: *No, if I'm 
goin' to leave off some bad habits I may as well leave 
off all. If God has the power to forgive sins he has 
the power to keep me from sinning. He can take 
the tobacco habit from me if he wants to. ' " 

That's right, Harvey," observed Uncle Gilbert, 
and if there's anything else I can use that you con- 
clude you don't believe in, just pass along to me what- 
ever you happen to have on hand." 

"I ain't any fault to find with the man who can 
smoke or take a chew of tobacco and be decent about 
it," Harvey continued; "and you can't find it in the 
lips of the Bible where it says it's wicked to smoke." 







In a vineyard 



i 



The Pennsylvania Shore 65 

"No," said Uncle Gilbert, "and IVe never made a 
hog of myself usin' it. When I am around like I am now 
doin' nothin', I smoke more in a day than I do at home 
in a week. The trouble with you, Harvey, was that 
you went to extremes." 

"That's just what I done," assented the young man 
earnestly. "The Bible says, *Be diligent in all things,' 
and that's what I was with tobacco. A few years ago 
one cigar a day would do me. Then I got to smokin' 
two, then three. The habit kep' growin' on me, and 
lately I've bought a box at a time. I'd smoke five or 
six a day and chew up a couple of more. The first thing 
in the mornin', as soon as I got my pants on, I'd put a 
cigar in my mouth; but after I'd confessed I was a 
sinner at the tent-meetin' it was the easiest thing for 
me to give up tobacco of anything I ever done. I don't 
care for it any more. One advantage of the change is 
that my mouth don't have that dark brown taste it 
used to have, when I get up in the mornin'. Besides, 
I'm savin' the price of a good suit of clothes every year. 
But if I was to take a cigar again, I'd want the next one 
pretty quick, and I'd soon be worse than ever." 

"You've hit it exactly, Harvey," said Uncle Gilbert. 
"Don't you be tempted to smoke again. I'll take care 
that the cigars you gave me ain't wasted. " 

I asked about the tent-meetings and learned that 
they had been held in a grove where formerly it had 
been the custom to have camp-meetings. "In the old 
days," said Uncle Gilbert, "a man would bring his 



66 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

family to camp-meetin' and stay several days. Some 
drove from a long distance." 

The recent tent-meetings had lasted six weeks. An 
evangelist had charge of them, and the collections taken 
at the meetings remunerated him. He was very fervent 
and roused his audiences to a considerable degree of 
excitement. "Whenever he made a good argument," 
said Harvey, "there were people who would holler 
*Amen!' and if someone else was speakin' he'd help 
emphasize. 'Glory to God,' was his strong hold 
His preachin' certainly was powerful, and yet five years 
ago he couldn't read." 

"He didn't suit me very well when you took me over 
there the other night," remarked Uncle Gilbert. 
"Every time I got a chance to look around a bushel 
basket hat a lady in front of me wore I could see that the 
preacher had an awful grin. I hain't sayin' anything 
against his talk, but I wouldn't want a face like that. 
He had a way of drawin' his mouth so you'd see his 
teeth on both sides. Another thing — every once in a 
while he curled his head down, humped his back up 
and hopped about four feet into the air. I never saw 
such performing before in my life. The pulpit didn't 
seem the place for that sort of antics. It wasn't 
edifyin'." 

"But his face or his manners ain't the main thing," 
retorted Harvey. "We needed to be stirred up and he 
done it. People weren't takin' any live interest in the 
church. They'd come out to the preachin' service and the 



The Pennsylvania Shore 6"] 

Sunday-school, but the prayer-meetin's had been 
runnin' down for years until they'd been given up. Now 
they've been revived, and at the United Brethren 
Church prayer-meetin' last week seventy were present. 
The evangelist made over a hundred converts, nearly all 
of 'em young people between the ages of fifteen and 
thirty. A good many of 'em had been brought up in 
Christian homes, but the teachings went in at one ear 
and out at the other. We knew we was sinners and ex- 
pected we'd got to repent and believe some time, yet 
we was in no hurry. I haven't decided what church to 
join. The evangelist was preachin' Christ and not 
urgin' any particular sect on us, and each person must 
select his church for himself." 



"Harvey," said Uncle Gilbert, letting his chair come 
down to a level and leaning forward with his cigar in 
his hand, "when you find a church that you can feel 
is your home join that. Don't be dragged anywhere 
else. I don't care what denomination it is if only the 
gospel truth is preached there." 

"My father got stirred up at a revival fifteen years 
ago," said Harvey, "but he has his own idee about 
religion, and he don't belong to nothin'. Then, here's 
my wife — her people are Baptists. Now you wouldn't 
think there'd be but one right way to be baptized, would 
you.?" 

"I don't know about that," responded Uncle Gilbert. 
"There's three kinds of baptism spoken of in the Bible." 



68 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"I haven't run across where it says anything about 
sprinklin' yet," remarked Harvey. 

"If I had my glasses Fd find the place for you," 
said his uncle. "But never mind, let each person make 
their own choice. If Nellie wants immersion, I say 
*Amen' to it; and if you want to be sprinkled, or if this 
gentlemen across the table wants to be poured, that's 
all right. I remember how Cornelius Allen used to 
always keep a-whalin' to me that immersion was the 
only proper form of baptism. Then one time he jumped 
onto Jim Coombs about the matter. 'Never mind, 
Corny,' says Jim, and he took a Bible and showed where 
it told about the three kinds of baptism. That made 
Corn shut up." 

**The evangelist said he preferred immersion him- 
self," Harvey resumed, "and he baptized sixty-five in 
one day over here on French Crick — put 'em right 
under. It might have been nearer to go to the lake, but 
a curious crowd would have gathered there and spoiled 
the religious solemnity of the occasion. He couldn't 
baptize such a number in a waterin' trough. So they 
drove five miles back in the woods till they found a 
place where the crick was deep enough. It was off the 
highroad in a man's pasture." 

"They don't have any such powerful revivals as they 
used to have," affirmed Uncle Gilbert. "I've been in 
the United Brethren Church when over forty fell with 
the power. They'd drop right down unconscious." 

"What made 'em do that.^" asked Nellie. . 



The Pennsylvania Shore 69 



it 






It was 'the power of the holy spirit," he replied. 
I'd sooner believe it was the spirit of the devil," 
Harvey declared. 

Land sakes! Harvey," exclaimed Uncle Gilbert, 
you don't know what you're talkin' about. Hain't 
you read in your Bible how the holy spirit came to 
Christ's followers on the Day of Pentecost?" 

"Not yet," said Harvey. "I've had an interest in 
the Bible for only six weeks, while you've been readin' 
it all your life." 

"Well," said his uncle, "you ask this here one-eyed 
preacher over at the pond — what's his name.^ Higgins, 
yes, that's it. You ask him how it was in our churches 
here in the old days. He was a boy when I was. He'll 
tell you. When a man in a revival meetin' fell with the 
power, he didn't know anything at all, and except that 
he kep' on breathin' you might have thought he was 
dead. I've seen 'em jab a pin half its length into the arm 
of such a person, and he wouldn't flinch. I can remember 
how scairt Grandma Ticknor was when her husband 
fell unconscious. The preachin' and singin' and prayin' 
never stopped, but there she was flutterin' and fussin' 
around him in a way that reminded me of a hen with 
chickens. 'Pa, what's the matter .f*' she says. 'Pa, 
why don't you say something to me.?' 

"Then there was old Uncle Ichabod Fuller — he fell 
in the same way, and Aunt Chloe, his wife, sat down on 
the floor right there in meetin', took his head in her 
lap, and went to strokin' his face. 



JO Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"After the service ended that night we loaded those 
who were unconscious into sleighs. There was twenty- 
one of 'em, and we took 'em to their homes, or, if they 
didn't live near, to some of the neighbors' not far from 
the church. Jim Coombs was taken to our house, and 
he never came to till next mornin' at breakfast time. He 
was lyin' on the sofa, when all of a sudden he began 
clappin' his hands and screamin' * Glory to God!'" 

"We'd think it mighty queer if people carried on that 
way now," was Harvey's comment. 

"That might all be, Harvey," responded his uncle. 
"Nevertheless, perhaps we'd be the better for it." 

"But why ain't people stricken with power now.^" 
questioned Nellie. "Are they worse?" 

"For one thing," said Uncle Gilbert, "the preachers 
are not so sincere. Their work has come to be more a 
way of makin' a livin'. And I'll tell you my candid 
belief — I don't know it, but it's my belief — that a great 
deal of the fault lies with the professin' Christians. 
You start right out, and go where you please, and set 
still and listen to what you hear in the meetin's — more 
than half the testimonies are just a sort of form and 
style. People ain't careful either about bringin' their 
children up religiously. I've lived a good many years, 
and I can tell you that in some ways we hain't been 
gettin' better." 

"But did you approve of all that was done in the old 
revivals.^" Nellie inquired. 

"Why, no," said he, "I don't believe in goin' out 



The Pennsylvania Shore 71 

among the people at the meetin's, as they sometimes 
did, and gettin' hold and pullin' and haulin' and urgin' 
to come forward. Give 'em the chance, but it's their 
business to make the final decision. Your question 
brings to mind a protracted meetin' back up here in the 
country about four miles. They were havin' a great 
revival, and I went one day. I think it was a Sunday, 
but I wouldn't be sure. They asked those that felt con- 
victed of sin to rise to their feet or put up a hand, and 
they'd pray for 'em. Among them who asked for 
prayers were two young men. One set up near the 
front, and the other back further near where I was. 
After they'd been prayed for the minister invited 'em 
to speak, and tell their experience. The feller near the 
front got up and said he wanted to repent, but he didn't 
feel that his sins were forgiven. So they prayed for him 
some more and sang a hymn, and after that the minister 
asked the other feller to speak. He kind o' hung back, 
but the people who was most active in the revival kept 
at him, tellin' him it would do him good to relieve his 
mind, and by and by he got on his feet. Well, I could 
see the Old Harry stickin' out of his eyes as if he had 
some deviltry planned. But he spoke along at first 
testifyin' in the usual way, and the minister said * Amen' 
a time or two. 

"Then the feller says, ^I'm just as sure of heaven as I 
am of ketchin' this fly on my sleeve. ' 

"He made a grab. 'By gum!' says he, 'I've missed 
him'; and out of the church he went. 



72 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"I wouldn't dare do such a thing as that," said 
Harvey. "Fd be afraid Vd be stricken right down." 

"It brought things to a standstill in the meetinV' 
said Uncle Gilbert, " and it was quite a while before they 
could get goin' again. A few years later I got acquainted 
with the young man I was tellin' you about, and he was 
just that wicked he didn't believe in any hereafter 
whatever. He said he didn't expect to get any nearer 
heaven than his old horse would. 

"When I was a boy the minister we had at our church 
preached Sundays and was an ordinary laborer the rest 
of the days. In the winter he'd go to the woods and be 
there from Monday,mornin' to Saturday night choppin' 
down trees and drawin' logs the same as any other man. 
When the sleighin' broke up he'd go onto the crick and 
run logs. In the summer he worked for day wages 
among the farmers. He was a good preacher and a man 
that had success in his ministry. A great many were 
converted under his preachin'. To pay him the people 
gave him whatever they chose — money, pork and hams, 
butter, eggs, a load of hay for his horse, and any such 
things. About once a year a donation party was got up 
for him, usually in winter, and that was when most of 
the givin' was done." 

We were still sitting at the supper table, except 
Uncle Gilbert, and Harvey had absent-mindedly eaten 
everything within reach. I now suggested that it was 
time to retire, and the gathering broke up. 

In the morning the family were stirring at daybreak 




Picking tomatoes 



The Pennsylvania Shore 73 

and we had an early breakfast. While we were eating, 
Nellie happened to mention that she had been a school 
teacher. This made Uncle Gilbert become reminiscent, 
and he said: "Your grandmother, Nellie, began teachin' 
at fourteen years of age; but she was fifteen the next 
month. Her wages were a dollar a week. She boarded 
'round. I have known good men teachers to teach for 
twelve dollars a month and board 'round. But boardin' 
'round went out of fashion long ago, and now we pay 
the teachers fifty dollars for a twenty day month. 
When I was young they taught every week day. After 
a while there was a half holiday each week, and of late 
years they've got it so they have the whole of every 
Saturday, and the teachers think it's awful because 
they have to teach six hours a day. Really, there ain't 
six hours, because the two recesses take out thirty 
minutes. Our old schools were well disciplined, and 
the teachers done well, even if they were paid less than 
you can get a hired girl for now. " 

After breakfast Harvey showed me around his farm, 
ending with the vineyard where we sampled the grapes. 
"We'll begin pickin' next week," said he. "I hire 
women here in the neighborhood to help. Women are 
much better than men for that job. A man's fingers 
are too big and clumsy, and he has to do a lot of fussin' 
and trimmin' to fill his baskets in good shape. But with 
the women the grapes seem to just naturally fall in the 
baskets to fill 'em and look nice. The women are the 
best strawberry pickers, too. My wife can pick two 



74 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

hundred baskets in a day. We get good crops here and 
the farmers are so well satisfied, that there's rarely a 
chance to buy a place, unless the owner has made 
enough money to retire from farming and live in the 
village. Well, I'd like to do that myself, but I don't 
know what I'd retire on unless it was my looks. 

"However, this is a pleasant neighborhood right here. 
We're too busy with our crops to be very sociable in 
summer; but in winter, when work ain't pressin', we 
try to get better acquainted with each other. We had 
a party every week or two all last winter. It began with 
surprise parties. They tried to surprise us, but we 
heard what was intended over the telephone and had a 
chance to clean the house and get ready. We took up 
the front room carpet and moved the furniture out so 
the young folks would have a place to play. It was a 
good room for dancing, but they were rather shy about 
that, for some of us think dancing is sinful. I used to 
dance until I began going with Nellie. Then I quit 
because her ma was opposed to it. I thought too much 
of the girl to take any risk of losing her. The people at 
the party who liked something lively played Skip to My 
Lou and Needle's Eye and just such silly games, and the 
rest set in their chairs and visited. About eleven o'clock 
supper was passed around. All we done was to make 
coffee and tea. Our callers brought cake and pie and 
whatever they wanted to. The people gradually left 
after supper, and by one o'clock they'd all gone home." 

The young farmer now turned away to begin the 



The Pennsylvania Shore 75 

day's work in earnest, and I went rambling on through 
the countryside until I came to the lake. Then for some 
miles I followed the shingly shore with its strewings of 
driftwood and its rippling waves. Adjacent to the 
water was a strip of swampy woodland, and beyond 
this was a rough ascent to the plateau where was the 
cultivated farm country. While I was walking along 
the beach I overtook a man who was searching in the 
drift rubbish for possible treasures washed up by the 
waves. A companion in a rowboat took on whatever 
was worth carrying off. They picked up beer kegs, 
whiskey bottles and occasional pieces of board. They 
said they went out from Erie every day and explored 
different strips of shore. Monday was their best day, 
for on Sunday people enjoying outings threw away an 
unusual number of the kegs and bottles. 

In nearly every glen by the shore was a shack or two 
and evidence of fires and campers. At length I followed 
one of the winding paths that led back through the 
woods. It took me up a steep ravine across a wild bit of 
pasturage, where I could hear the soberly melodious 
tinkle of a cowbell. On the open slopes grew rose vines 
loaded with scarlet hips, and, in a boggy spot were some 
delicate fringed gentians. Presently I got to a highway 
and kept on till I came to a field in which two young 
men were busy picking tomatoes. I accosted them and 
in the chat that followed mentioned where I had stopped 
the previous night, and spoke of the tent-meetings. 

"It's awful easy to wind up some people," com- 



"](} Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

mented one of the men. "There's persons here that 
never done a day's work the whole six weeks of the 
revival. I don't know whether they can winter on it or 
not. This here preacher took on awful about secret 
societies, and I heared tell that one man who'd joined 
the Odd Fellers only this spring throwed away his lodge 
pin and give up the whole thing. It's a gift o' gab that 
does the trick, and I'll bet you that just as good a talker 
could hold forth up there at the grove against every- 
thing this evangelist said and get 'em all. 

"I remember when Harvey's dad got religion. Gee 
whiz! he blame near went crazy. Well, sir, he become 
one of these holy rollers — * Evening Lights' I think they 
call themselves. They claim it ain't right to hire a 
minister, and so each congregation selects one of their 
own number, and he preaches as the spirit moves, with- 
out pay. Then, too, if one of 'em is sick they don't have 
no doctor or give any medicine, but just set around in 
the sick room and sing and pray. 

"I went to the baptizin' at the time of that revival 
fifteen years ago. It was over on French Crick. The 
preacher waded in, and he got along pretty well ducking 
the converts one after another until he come to a big fat 
woman. She got away from him, and he had to have 
help. That created quite an excitement, and the father 
of one of the young fellers who was waitin' to be bap- 
tized whispered to him, 'Herb, I'll give you ten dollars 
if you'll duck the preacher.' 

Bygoll I'll do it, ' says Herbert. 



(( ( 



The Pennsylvania Shore ^^ 

"He was a little feller, but withy as a whalebone, and 
as much at home in the water as a fish. Pretty soon the 
preacher baptized him. As soon as Herb was on his 
feet again he just give his face a wipe with his hands so 
he could see where he was at, dove under and grabbed 
that tall slim preacher by the legs and tumbled him 
backwards in all over. Then he swam across the crick 
and set on the bank. After the preacher had recovered 
his footing and had the water out of his eyes and mouth 
he did give Herb a terrible tongue-lashin'. You see the 
man was twelve miles from home, and he'd got to preach 
that afternoon. I guess he had an extra pair of pants, 
but he hadn't calculated on getting his shirt or his other 
upper clothing wet. " 

Just as my acquaintance finished this story his father, 
an elderly man who carried a cane, joined us, and sat 
down on a tomato box. He had come to complain that 
some of their hired men on another part of the farm 
were not doing their work properly. 

" Of late years, " said the son to me, " most of our help 
are Polocks. Those that come from the old country are 
pretty steady and reliable; but you take these Polocks 
that are raised here, and they tear around nights and 
are wild as hawks. It's the new generation that I've 
got. Usually they're fair sort of workers, but they went 
to town last night and took a little too much opedildoc. 
So they're grouchy and cranky today." 

"I've lived here all my life," said the old man, "and 
I'll say this — you can't hire a man for two dollars and a 



78 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

half a day who'll do as much work as a man used to do 
for fifty cents. They can play ball as much as ever, 
but they can't stand the work. Think of what a task 
the early settlers had to clear up their farms here. The 
land was covered with heavy timber — beech, maple, 
chestnut, hemlock. They'd slash down a piece, cut it 
up in log lengths such as a team could handle, pile it up 
and burn it. The quicker they got the ground cleared 
up the better. They wanted to get to raising something. 
The cleared land would first be pastured, for they 
couldn't plough, there were so many stumps in it, and 
they had to wait a few years for the stumps to rot. 

"When I was a boy there was ten log houses to one 
frame house. The walls were of the hardwood trees 
that grew here, and the cracks were stopped with 
chinkin' — that is, with slender pieces split out of bass- 
wood. We mixed up some clay mud and plastered over 
the cracks and chinkin' on the outside. The inside of 
the walls we'd hew down smooth enough so we could 
paste paper onto 'em. The floor was of split basswood 
smoothed off with an adz. Our fireplace was of stone, 
and was so large we could roll logs eight feet long right 
into it. Those logs were big and green enough to last 
for days. We had no candles, no lamps, no nothin', 
except the light from the fire in the fireplace. 

"The winters were cold and snowy, and we usually 
had considerable sleighing. We rarely get sleighing 
now. There's no timber to hold the snow, and it blows 
off in too many places and leaves the ground bare. 



The Pennsylvania Shore 79 

The rail fences used to ketch the drifts, and the roads 
would be so filled up we'd have a time of shoveling out, 
and of ploughing a track with our oxen. Pretty much 
all the farmers had oxen then. I didn't know enough to 
drive 'em myself. They wouldn't mind me someway. 

"There's been great changes within my memory. I 
think at times of how we had to hitch up whenever we 
wanted to speak to anybody before we had telephones; 
and I wonder, with all the improvements they're makin' 
and easier ways they're inventin' for doin' work, what 
shape things will be in fifty years from now. 

"But I can tell you one thing where old times had us 
beat way out of sight, and that's in celebratin' Fourth of 
July. Everyone around here went to Erie to spend the 
day, and the noise and speeches and fun we had there 
ain't been equalled since. Perhaps the person I recollect 
most clearly in the celebration was old drum-major 
Fitch. He was one of the head men on such occasions, 
walking around and drumming. Besides, he was a great 
feller to get up verses on anything, and he was a leader 
in our Erie Railroad war. We had quite a mess then. 
As often as the railroad built any track here a lot of 
fellers would get together and tip a whole string of the 
new track right over." 

From other sources I heard more of this railroad war. 
It was one of the most curious episodes in the history of 
transportation. In 1853, when this war occurred, the 
railroads connecting what are today the great cities of 
the country ran one, or at most, two trains a day. On 



8o Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

the New York and Erie, one of the fastest and best 
equipped of American railroads, the mail train ran half 
the distance one day, and then stopped over night before 
it proceeded on its way. A fruitful cause of delays was 
the variety in guages of the different roads, so that the 
trains of one road could not run on another. Thus, at 
Erie, the road from the east was four feet and ten inches, 
while that from the west was six feet. If connections 
failed as they often did, passengers had at least to eat 
one or more meals in Erie, and often were delayed there 
over night. 

Such a state of affairs, though quite satisfactory to the 
local hotel men, was very annoying to travellers. The 
city authorities refused to allow the guage of the roads 
within the municipal limits to be made uniform, and 
when the eastern road ignored this refusal and began 
to change its rails to conform to those of the western 
road the courthouse bell was rung to summon the citi- 
zens. The people were emphatically unwilling to be 
made a "way-station on a through route," and lose the 
advantages of being a terminus for railroads and steam- 
boat lines. After listening to impassioned speech- 
making from the courthouse steps, the crowd, led by 
the mayor, started for the wooden railroad bridge. 
Employees of the railroad were there on guard, but they 
were quickly routed by a shower of rotten eggs and other 
missiles, and the mob wrecked the bridge and returned 
in triumph. Two days later a similar mob destroyed a 
railroad bridge at Harbor Creek, a few miles east of the 




Stacking corn 



The Pennsylvania Shore 8i 

city. This bridge was rebuilt by the company four 
times, and each time was promptly burned or torn 
down. 

For three years the fight continued. "Break guage 
at Erie, or have no railroad," was the motto of the 
"Rippers," as the opponents of the road were called, 
because of their violent methods. There was a gap of 
seven miles between the two roads. Horace Greeley, 
the famous editor of the New York Tribune, passed 
through Erie at this time and had to "cross the 
isthmus" in an open sleigh through a severe storm of 
wind and sleet. After that the railroad managers and 
the townspeople were continually denounced in his 
paper. "Let Erie be avoided by all travellers," he 
wrote on his return, "until grass shall grow in her streets 
and till her piemen in despair shall move away to some 
other city. " 

At last the courts and legislature settled the matter. 
Both parties made concessions, and trains ran peace- 
ably through Erie. 

Note. — Erie has some important industries that are interesting, 
and there are shores in the vicinity that are pleasantly picturesque; 
but I think the grape industry which flourishes almost the entire 
distance between Erie and Buffalo is the finest attraction of the 
region. Naturally the country is most lusciously attractive in 
autumn, and October is the ideal month to see the harvest in 
progress. 



it 
ii 

a 



AN AUTUMN PARADISE 

I HAD stopped at Sandusky — not in search of a 
Paradise, but because it was in the vicinity where 

Commodore Perry won his famous victory. The 
city, however, is in a region that has a notable reputation 
for its peaches, and the harvest was then in progress. 
There is no crop more deliciously attractive, and when I 
expressed a wish to see the orchards I was advised to 
visit Catawba Island. 

And how shall I get to the island.^" I inquired. 
Is there a ferry?" 

There's no need for that," was the response. "It's 
only separated from the mainland by marshes and a 
narrow streak of open channel. You go by railway to 
Gypsum, and you'll find a causeway and bridge by 
which you can cross to the island easy. " 

So to Gypsum I went and was soon tramping a dusty 
island road. I met an occasional load of peaches going 
to market, and by and by one of the returning wagons 
came jogging along, and the driver invited me to ride. 
After I had clambered up on the broad platform of the 
wagon beside him and we had started on I asked him 
how far he was going. 

I'm working for a man," said he, "whose place is 



a T>. 



An Autumn Paradise 83 

over on the other side of the Island, seven or eight miles 
from the railroad station. He's an old-timer at the 
peach business. In fact, he began thirty years ago, and 
was one of the first to put in peach trees here. Now 
there's hardly anything but peaches raised on the Island. 
Our soil seems to be just suited to 'em, and we get a 
flavor In our fruit that they don't elsewhere. You can 
see a whole lot of difference between our peaches and 
those grown no farther away than across the harbor." 
The peach orchards made a rather monotonous 
landscape; for the Individual trees were In nowise 
striking, and in each orchard they were all about the 
same size, set in regular rows, with the ground beneath 
ploughed and harrowed. But the blushing fruit that 
hung In such abundance on the branches was sufficiently 
beautiful to make up for any other deficiencies. 
Nature's bounty was very evident, and I wondered that 
the buildings of the orchard owners should so often be 
unkempt in their surroundings and suffering for paint 
and repairs. But my driver enlightened me. Peach- 
raising here had not been without serious vicissitudes. 
"The San Jose scale got into the orchards," said he, 
"the trees began to die, and we started to fight It. We 
tried whale oil soap, and kerosene, and other sorts of 
oils. But a peach tree is too delicate for such things, 
and the oils were almost as fatal as the scale. Now 
we're using the sulphur-lime mixture, and that does the 
business. Spraying and all, raising peaches is expen- 
sive, but they're profitable just the same. 



84 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"Last April we thought we were going to lose this 
year's crop. There came six inches of snow when the 
trees were in full bloom, but it seemed to help them. 
If the weather had turned around and froze — oh my! 
we wouldn't be shipping peaches this fall. When we 
have a failure in 'em we get none at all. I remember a 
year when there was only four peaches on the island 
that anybody knew about. The fellow that owned the 
orchard they was in was saving 'em till they was nice 
and ripe, but one night someone swiped 'em. 

"The peaches this season are not as large as they 
would have been if we'd had more moist weather. We 
was dry as a powder-house here all summer. Prices 
ain't very satisfactory, either. Ordinarily we call it a 
cheap peach that sells for two dollars a bushel, and we 
get twice that for our best ones, but this year the price 
has dropped more'n half. That's partly because there's 
an awful crop. Then there was one while we were 
blocked for cars, and that knocked the stuffing out of 
prices. You see a peach won't hold up like an apple. 
They have to be marketed at once, and the sooner they 
get to the consumer the better. But the principal 
trouble with prices has been that the buyers have taken 
advantageof us. It'slikethis — our peaches are auctioned 
at Gypsum every afternoon. The loads are lined up 
there right smart thick — perhaps a hundred or more — 
and one after the other they are bid off. A slew of 
buyers are on hand from the cities, and they take all the 
fruit that's offered and pay for it right on the spot. 



An Autumn Paradise 85 

But lately a buyer named Healey fixed up an under- 
standing so the buyers wouldn't run up the price. 
The other day the farmers gave him a calling down 
there proper, and I don't expect he'll show up any 
more. There's another buyer they're talking about 
sending off — he gets full and makes a fool of himself a 
little too often. 

"However, the farmers themselves ain't faultless. 
Some, In their hurry to get their peaches early into the 
market, pick 'em green. The fruit ain't fit to eat and 
they know it. But the skin will color up, and though 
it is apt to shrivel, most retail buyers are deceived and 
think they're investing In fine fruit. When they find 
how sour and flat it tastes they're disgusted with 
peaches, and that hurts future sales." 

We at length reached the farm where my companion 
worked, and at parting he said: "You want to look out 
for snakes while you're on the Island. This rocky 
country just suits 'em, and they're pretty plentiful. 
I often see snake tracks crossing the highway — big ones, 
too. We have rattlesnakes and copperheads and blue 
racers — all of 'em vicious. But they won't bother you 
if you leave 'em alone. The other day I stepped on a 
rattlesnake. He was right in the path to the packing- 
house, and I tell you I jumped farther backward than I 
ever shall forward. Once In a while a dog gets bitten. 
Generally a bitten dog will go and lay right in the mud, 
and they claim that draws the poison out. But my dog 



86 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

got bit in the cheek this summer and he died the same 
day. 

"There used to be quite a few milk-snakes here. 
I know a fellow who noticed he wa'n't getting the milk 
he ought to get from one of his cows. So he watched 
her, and while she was lying down out in the pasture 
he saw one of those short, thick, light-colored milk- 
snakes come and suck her. He killed it in a hurry, you 
bet you!" 

At the rear of the farmhouse hung a bell on a pole 
that was perhaps a dozen feet high, and a woman now 
came from a back door, laid hold of a wire that dangled 
down the pole and set the bell in motion. This was the 
signal for dinner. The ding dong was not very musical, 
but it very likely sounded surpassingly sweet to the 
hungry workers. 

I went on until I came to a little lakeside village. 
Down by the shore was a fish-house and two or three 
wharves, and in the lee of the fish-house wharf were 
some large flat-bottomed rowboats idly rocking on the 
waves. Several fishermen were loitering about, and I 
made their acquaintance. "We go to and from the 
fishing-grounds in those rowboats," said a man who 
seemed to be a kind of overseer; "but we don't use the 
oars much. A steam tug tows us. We're employed by 
a big Chicago company and have stiddy work all 
through the year. They allow us two vacations of a 
week each, one that takes in the Fourth of July, and the 
other to include Christmas. That gives us a chance to 




Ohio peaches 



An Autumn Paradise 87 

go oiF and celebrate, which means getting drunk for' a 
good many of us. Most of the men are married and live 
on the island with their families. 

"I've knocked around on all these lakes, and you 
won't find much better waters for fishing than we've 
got right along here. The season generally opens 
toward the end of March, and we keep at it till late in 
the fall. We have over a hundred nets, and in winter 
we are busy mending 'em, and doing other repairing 
and odd jobs. Sandusky is such a center for shipping 
fish that we call it "Fish Town." They're handling 
'em even in midwinter. Lots of pickerel that have been 
caught with a hook and line through the ice are brought 
in there. I saw one that long," holding his hands 
thirty inches apart, "when I happened to be in town 
last January. I can vouch for the size because I 
swiped it out of a barrel and took it home and ate it. 

"While the season lasts we plan to go out to the fish- 
ing grounds every morning. Sometimes, when there's a 
north-east blow, it's a little too leerie, and we miss a 
lift or two; but it'd surprise you to see the weather 
these little boats'll take. Our last serious accident was 
two years ago. It was a nasty day, and a launch was 
towing one of the fish-boats. Coming around Mouse 
Island a wave ketched the boat and threw one of the 
men into the water, and he was drowned. 

"Of late years carp have become an important fish 
in this region. Carp are a mud fish just like the bull- 
head, and as they're always nosing around in the mud 



88 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

they take up the taste. I'd wait a good while before Td 
eat 'em. They're a blame nuisance, but they sell well. 
The Germans and the other old country men buy them 
because they're cheap. There's a man at Sandusky 
who has a pond where he fattens 'em. They come to 
the marshes bordering the harbor to spawn, and he 
furnishes boats and nets and pays so much a pound for 
ketching 'em and putting 'em in his pond. A carp has a 
grinder similar to that of a horse — regular teeth — it 
sure has; and he feeds 'em on cracked corn. When he 
goes out on the pond with the corn and raps on the side 
of the boat, the fish come like a flock of pigs, and jump 
out of the water and splash around and follow the boat. 
After about two months the pond is pumped down so he 
can drag it easily with a seine. This year he took out 
ninety-eight tons that he sold for four cents a pound. 
They were shipped in tank cars and so carried to New 
York alive. There are many other ponds along the 
Erie shore where carp are handled in the same way." 

I presently left the fishermen and went tramping 
back across the island, regaling myself meanwhile on 
the peaches that plentifully bestrewed the ground 
under the roadside trees. By and by I met a boy on his 
way home from school. He too was eating peaches, and 
when I asked him how many he disposed of in a day he 
named a hundred as his capacity. Probably he over- 
estimated. The teacher had kept him a half hour after 
the other children had gone, and he was doubtless 
feeling uncommonly ravenous just then. 



An Autumn Paradise 89 

Near by was a packing-house, and a man was stand- 
ing in the doorway. "It pleases me," said he, "to see 
the way the help we hire eat peaches when they first 
come to begin picking. Peaches don't fill up any, and 
it's astonishing how many a fellow can stow away, and 
yet be as hungry at mealtime as if he hadn't eaten any. " 

The afternoon was warm, and I went into the cool of 
the packing-house to rest for a little while. The man 
who had spoken to me at the door, and two women 
constituted the packing force. They had finished 
putting up all the peaches that had been brought in 
from the orchard and were waiting for the next load. 
The women were looking at a many-paged illustrated 
catalog of a Chicago mail-order house. "Some fami- 
lies buy all their provisions from this firm," remarked 
one of the women, " and they buy their shoes and clothes 
and most everything else there, too. I want a sewing 
machine. They'll send it on thirty days' trial. Prob- 
ably I could get my sewing all done in that time so I 
could ship the machine back." 

"I wonder if I couldn't get some medicine from 'em 
to rub on and cure this peach fuzz itch," observed the 
other woman. "The fuzz poisons my hands and arms 
and makes my eyes inflame. The hotter and sweatier 
the weather the worse the fuzz bites. Some days it 
drives me pretty near wild. It flies in the air, and 
tickles in my throat and makes me sneeze. I'm troubled 
more than most by it, but all of us are troubled some." 

"I guess you wish our farmers would raise some other 



90 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

crops besides peaches," said the first woman. "But 
they seem bound to set the trees out all over their land, 
and don't leave hardly ground for pastures nor nothing. 
Most families used to have six or seven cows, where now 
they do well If they keep two or three. All we care 
about Is to have enough milk and butter from 'em for 
our own use. A good deal of the feed has to be bought 
but when I was a girl our own hayfields supplied us 
and we had great big pastures. Gracious! sometimes 
I'd have to go hunting for Grandma's cows In her 
pasture, and It didn't seem as If I'd ever get down to the 
end of that pasture. When I found 'em I'd chase 'em 
up Into the lane and shut the gate behind 'em. Grand- 
ma would come from the house with a pall In each hand 
and milk 'em there In the lane. All the older women 
milked. I tried It once after Grandma died. Father 
usually did the milking then, but one time he had sore 
hands, and I said I'd milk. I sat down beside Brindle 
and began — but, oh Lord! I was scairt to death. Every 
time the cow looked around I jumped up and run. 

"Now most of the old pasture Is growing to peaches. 
One part was almost solid rock with a little skimming of 
soil on top, and In order to start trees on it we shot out 
holes with dynamite to set 'em in. They didn't live 
long for lack of moisture, yet If the rock had been loose 
stone they'd have thriven. So it happens we still have a 
pasture. But, as I said, we buy most of our hay, and we 
buy all our fuel, too^ except summer firewood. The 
peach trees furnish that, though it's poor stuff, for we 




Fishermen 



An Autumn Paradise 91 

only cut down a tree or remove a large branch when it's 
dead, and the wood is punky." 

Across the road from the packing-house was a pig 
yard, and the pigs were faring sumptuously at this 
season on the partially decayed peaches that would 
otherwise be useless. "Those peaches make good 
pork," said the man, "and it's surprising how fast the 
pigs can eat 'em, at the same time spitting out all the 

pits." 

While he was speaking, another load arrived from the 
orchard, and labor was resumed at the sorting-machine. 
The man emptied the baskets in at the upper end, and 
one of the women worked the treadles and guided the 
peaches to the runway where they rolled gently down 
an incline, and, beginning with the smallest and ending 
with the largest, fell into chutes and found their way to 
a row of baskets. Peach-picking had begun late in 
August and would continue until the middle of October. 
A great many varieties were grown on the island, and 
each farmer had both early and late ones to make the 
season as long as possible and enable him to handle them 
to advantage. 

When I was about to leave the packing-house the 
man called my attention to a particularly fine basket 
of peaches which he said he was going to send to rela- 
tives down in the central part of the state. "I shall 
cover it with slats and make it all secure, " said he, " and 
yet it'll be sure to be broken into. Well, sir, by crackee ! 
I expect pretty near half those peaches will be taken on 



92 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

the way. That happens every year. It's a shame." 
In the early gloom of the evening I was back at the 
railroad and took a train for Sandusky. But the train 
had not gone far when it came to a standstill. There 
had been a freight wreck on ahead, and we were 
delayed for hours, meanwhile getting hungrier all the 
time until one man declared he could "eat the jamb oflF 
the door." 

Catawba Island is the paradise of peaches in this 
vicinity, but the rest of the farming country is a paradise 
also in its way. On another day I rambled into the 
region south of Sandusky, and it was a pleasure to look 
on the rich level lands and see everywhere such evi- 
dences of comfort and prosperity. I followed the long, 
straight roads, turning an occasional right-angled 
corner in a search for variety. On either side of the 
highway were deep drainage ditches, and after a while I 
came across a man cleaning out and enlarging one of 
them. I spoke to him, found him sociably inclined, and 
then I sat down in the shade of a near tree with my 
back against a fence post to have a chat. He was a 
gray-whiskered, round-shouldered man with a black 
slouch hat crowded down onto his ears. While we 
talked he worked quite steadily, only pausing to make 
a specially interesting or emphatic point. He was work- 
ing for the owner of an adjacent farm. "The ditch is 
for the land's sake, not for the road's sake," said he. 
"It'll improve the man's hayfield, and he'll git some 
dirt to fill up a low place in his yard." 



An Autumn Paradise 93 

The excavation was so wide and deep it seemed to 
impress all beholders. Men came from neighboring 
fields to look into it, and many a passing team paused 
while the driver asked the why and wherefore of the 
work. Sometimes the driver would alight for a closer 
examination. One farmer who lived close by let his 
team go on into the yard while he remained and talked, 
and I observed that his wife came out of the house and 
unhitched the horse. 

The man who was most critical had been drinking, 
and he had imbibed just freely enough to make him 
capable of pronouncing judgment with infallible 
wisdom on anything to which he gave his attention. 

"Hiram," said he, addressing the worker, "what is 
this here darn thing you're a-diggin'.^" 

"It's a ditch," responded Hiram, stopping long 
enough to clean the point of his pickax with his thumb 
and finger, "I'm diggin' a ditch, Joe." 

Well, by gracious Peter!" exclaimed the other, 
then why don't you slope the sides .^" 

"My orders were to dig it as I am a-diggin' it," 
replied Hiram. 

"But," said Joe, "the sides ought to be slanted 
enough so the grass will grow on 'em, or else the banks'U 
be cavin' in next spring. Hiram, you don't know what 
you're doin'. The ditch and this dirt don't belong to 
no private individuals. You better quit right where 
you're at, or I'll tell the county commissioners, and 
they'll come here and take you to jail. I wouldn't 



(C 



94 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

work for the man you're workin' for anyway. He 
wanted me to put up a stretch of fence for him last year, 
and we each measured the distance twice, in order to 
make a bargain for the job, but his measure and mine 
didn't agree, and I went off. Later his wife sent for me 
and asked what the matter was. I told her about our 
not measurin' alike, and I says, 'I don't know whether 
I'm losin' my mind, or whether you've married a fool. ' 
But she and I talked it over, and she said she'd pay me 
my price. So I did the work. " 

"What time is it, Joe, by your gold watch and 
chain?" inquired the digger as he spat on his hands 
and took a fresh grip on his pick. 

"By the chain it's dinner time," Joe answered, 
taking his watch from his pocket; "but by the watch 
it's only eleven o'clock, standard time. " 

"So you carry standard time the same as the town 
fellers," commented the digger. "But sun time — 
God's time — is good enough for me. " 

After Joe had gone, the ditch-digger remarked : " He's 
a crazy bat when he's drunk, but he's a good worker at 
such times as he is sober. The trouble is he can't let 
liquor alone, and drinks all his wages. 'Twas the same 
way with his father. Every time the old man got his 
pension money he went on a spree. Joe's wife and 
children has to work out to git enough to eat. When he 
married he built himself a house on his mother's land at 
a cost of fifty-six dollars. It was twenty feet long and 
ten wide and was all fixed so he could put it on wheels 




Advising the ditch digger 



An Autumn Paradise 95 

and move it, if she wouldn't let him stay. He's still 
livin' in that house though he's added onto it some. 

"Everybody seems to be astonished at the size of the 
ditch I'm diggin', but my gosh I if you want to see a 
ditch that is a ditch go out in Wood County. You 
could tip that there house opposite us into it bottom 
side up, and walk across on a level. It is right along side 
of the highway and goes through a hill to drain a big 
track of swamp. I was scairt the first time I went 
there. I'd never seen anything like it. 

"A person lookin' around here in this flat country 
wouldn't have any idea that there was hills only a few 
miles south— all kinds of 'em. Among those hills they 
git a natural drainage, but here we have to ditch good 
and deep in order to keep the roads dry. Years ago, 
before the ditches were dug, the roads were all mud and 
water a good deal of the time. Yes, sir, we had awful 
roads when I was a kid. There was places where a 
wagon would go in clear up to the ex. This was a rough 
new country in them days. 

"I was born and brought up in a log house. There 
wa'n't a frame house in the country then. Now I don't 
know of but two or three left. Most of the land was 
covered with timber, and it was big timber, too — not 
this little second growth such as we see at present. 
There was oak, hickory, and maple, and a good deal of 
ellum, and sometimes you'd come across a great chest- 
nut tree six feet through. Most of the oak was sent 
right to England to use for ship timber. The hickory 



g6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

was valuable for makin' wagons. A few years ago 
droves and droves of men were at work here gittin' out 
hickory butts. They only saved the trunk up to where 
the limbs began to make knots. 

"When the trees were first cleared off I tell you the 
land was good. I've seen 'em raise a hundred bushel of 
shelled corn to the acre in spite of the stumps standing 
so thick you wouldn't think the ground could be 
ploughed at all. 

"I c'n remember when the first railroad was put 
through here. The cars were little bits of things, not as 
big as our electric cars, and the engines were no larger 
than these here donkey engines. Instead of the heavy 
steel rails we see nowadays they used wooden ones with 
strap iron on 'em 'bout as wide as my hand. 

"If you was to notice the names on the mail boxes 
along here you'd think you was in Germany. In every 
direction just as fur as I know the folks are German 
and not a Yankee family among 'em. My mother 
couldn't speak a word of English until after she was 
sixteen years old. But our young people go to English 
schools, and they want to be Americans. You can't 
coax 'em to talk German. They seem to be ashamed 
of it. 

"The farmers in this region are generally pretty well 
fixed. They own their places, and you can't buy land 
along the pike here any less than two hundred dollars an 
acre. This used to be a great wine country, but when 
everybody goes into a thing the price drops. You won't 






An Autumn Paradise 97 

see a vineyard now on four farms. There ain't an acre 
of grapes where there used to be fifty. We did well at 
one time In peaches until the trees begun to git the 
yellows, and besides that the St. Joe scale come along. 
I grubbed my trees out and I hain't got a single peach 
tree left. It's the same with lots of other farmers. 
Lately we've put our land out to corn, oats, potatoes 
and such stuff. Where did you say your home was?" 

In Massachusetts," I replied. 

I s'pose they garden to beat the band there," he 
observed. "That's what Mrs. Burgh says. She has 
visited In Massachusetts a number of times. I've had a 
notion to go In for gardening myself, but the land where 
my place Is ain't so good as It Is here. I seem to have 
more than my share of setbacks. This year my early 
potatoes are a failure. I sha'n't dig as many as I 
planted. The blight got 'em. But my worst experience 
was three years ago, and that time my neighbors suf- 
fered as much as I did. It was the fifteenth of July, and 
I was cultlvatin' corn. A cloud came up from the 
southwest, and It rained a little bit. Then a cloud 
came up from the opposite direction, and the two 
clouds met right at my place. Hall began to fall — Gee 
whilllkers! the stones were as big as bantys' eggs. I 
stayed In a corner behind a hedge fence, and I had hard 
work to hold my horses. They kept running their heads 
into the hedge. It was a big osage hedge, and you know 
what a prickly concern that is. They got scratched 
some. 



98 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"My Lord! how the wind blew! But the storm didn't 
last over half an hour. It Hone everything it could do 
and went away. Just before the storm I had a beautiful 
vineyard hanging full of grapes. It would have done 
you good to see 'em. After the storm not a bunch was 
left except a few that happened to be protected by the 
posts. 

"I wa'n't hurt a particle myself, and I drove the 
horses to the house to see how my woman had got 
along. She was scairt, and so was everybody else. The 
wind had blowed the top off my straw stacks, tore some 
boards off the barn and scattered 'em around, and I 
guess we hadn't a chicken-coop that wa'n't turned over. 
Lots of little chickens were killed, too. 

"The storm had swept along toward Sandusky, gittin' 
worse and worse. It tore everything all to pieces, 
blew trees over, and stripped off the leaves and many of 
the branches of the trees that continued standing. You 
ought to have been up to Sandusky the next day and 
seen the houses with their busted windows all boarded 
up. Lots of houses didn't have one whole pane of glass 
left. There was hardly a telephone pole in two town- 
ships that hadn't been snapped off. You couldn't tell 
what had been planted in the cornfields, and in the oat- 
fields It looked as If the land had been ploughed and 
dragged. The hail didn't all melt for four days. By 
golly! where I scooped it off my porch it lay like a 
snowbank that first day, two feet deep. The season 
was too fur along to start the crops again, though some 




Looking out of Put-in-bay 



An Autumn Paradise 99 

sowed millet and turnips. In the fall we were running 
all over the country to buy hay and corn fodder. There 
were men on mortgaged or rented farms who were so 
discouraged they throwed up their places, and the towns 
gave the more destitute farme 3 jobs on the road to pay 
their taxes. 

**It reminded me of when t e stars fell thirty-five or 
forty years ago. I was livin' out in Lucas County and 
was at a revival one evening up at Swan Crick Church. 
Just as we were leavin', at the close of the service, it 
looked like every star in heaven was comin' down. 
But they didn't fall all to once. There were showers of 
'em, sometimes flyin' in one direction and sometimes 
in another, with pauses between for nearly an hour. 
They made a noise, too — a kind of roarin' noise that 
sounded like thunder, or like a freight train. We was 
all scairt, specially the young people, and some kneeled 
right down side of the road and commenced to pray. 
We thought the world was comin' to an end, and it 
wa'n't just the people that was scairt; the horses and 
cows in the fields ran away, and a good many got out. 
Everybody was huntin' cattle the next mornin'. 

"Now, if you're goin' down the road," said the ditch- 
digger when I rose preparatory to leaving, "you notice 
the big house with piazzas all around it about half a mile 
from here. Jacob Goerz lives there. He's rich, and yet 
he's never done a day's work in his life. He's rich and 
I'm poor. It's luck I tell you makes the difference — sure 
thing it is. You can go there and borrow whatever 



lOO Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

amount of money you want any day, if you can give 
good security. He don't know what he is worth, I 
guess. He's a great friend of mine, and he told me how 
he got his start at a time when he was as poor as I am. 
Him and his wife drove around the country buyin' 
cattle, and they stopped at a farm where the man was 
discouraged and wanted to sell out. Mr. Goerz didn't 
want the place, but when the man said he'd sell for half 
what he'd paid for it the year before, Mr. Goerz agreed 
to buy. *Now,' said he, *you and your wife go in the 
house and carry out every dud you've got in there, and 
I'll take possession at once.' 

"So the old owner moved out, and he moved in; but 
when he looked around his farm and see how stony the 
land was, he thought he was beat. Perhaps he would 
have been, only that in a short time some successful 
oil wells were put down there. They made him inde- 
pendent rich. After a while he bought this place here — 
six hundred acres. We all thought he was foolish to buy 
so much and pay the price he did. But he set right 
down and didn't do a darn thing except to sell the 
timber off, and that brought back all he'd paid. You 
call on him. He'll use you awful good. You can't name 
a thing there is in the saloons he ain't got in his cellar, 
and he'll give it to you, too." 

The ditch-digger seemed to feel that this attraction 
would prove irresistible, but I did not call on the man 
with the well-stocked cellar. Later in the day I re- 
turned to Sandusky and went by boat to South Bass 



An Autumn Paradise loi 

Island. It was from Put-In-Bay of this island that 
Commodore Perry's fleet went forth to fight the Battle 
of Lake Erie in 1813. The island is now a summer 
resort. It has rocky limestone shores chiseled by the 
waves into grottoes and many fantastic pillars and cor- 
rugations, and back inland is a good-sized cave said to 
have been discovered by Perry. It was even aflftrmed to 
me that he and his men had lived in the cave. 

At the time of the battle Perry was only twenty-eight 
years old, and his antagonist, Barclay, was not much 
over thirty. They had gotten their fleets ready with 
the greatest difliiculty, and the British delayed meeting 
their opponents as long as they could. At length, how- 
ever, Barclay saw no choice but to fight immediately, 
and he sailed to meet the American squadron, which was 
anchored in the little harbor of South Bass Island. His 
ships numbered six, and Perry had nine. The number 
of men on each side was about four hundred and fifty, 
yet Perry not only had the advantage in the number of 
ships, but these averaged larger than his opponent's 
and his guns could throw twice as heavy a broadside. 

At daybreak of September 10, Perry's lookout dis- 
covered the approaching British fleet, and the American 
ships at once weighed anchor, ran up their sails and 
stood toward the enemy. The wind was so light that 
both sides found difliculty in getting into position, but 
by noon they were drawn up for battle. Barclay com- 
manded the Detroit, and opposite him was Perry's 
flagship, the Lawrence, The firing opened at long range, 



102 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

and that of the British was so destructive Perry decided 
to set more sail and passed the word by hail of trumpet 
for the whole line to close up and advance nearer the 
enemy. For two hours the battle raged, at the end of 
which time the Lawrence was seriously disabled. The 
hull was shattered, the rigging shot away, and the 
greater part of the crew was killed or wounded. Perry 
himself fired the last effective heavy gun assisted only 
by the purser and chaplain. 

He now allowed the Lawrence to drop from her posi- 
tion, and took the desperate chance of venturing into a 
rowboat, in company with his brother and four seamen, 
and transferring his flag to the Niagara, which had been 
at some distance from the main engagement and was 
comparatively fresh. He reached the Niagara without 
mishap and again bore up to oppose the Detroit. His 
other vessels aided in the attack and they poured into 
the Detroit such volleys of shot that she soon became 
completely disabled and unmanageable. Within half 
an hour the British commander was forced to strike his 
flag and surrender. On both sides the battle had been 
hard fought, and the loss of life was very heavy. Four- 
fifths of the men on the Lawrence were killed or wounded 
and Perry himself was the only officer unharmed. 
When the ceremony of surrender was over. Perry tore 
off the back of an old letter, and using his hat for a 
writing-desk, wrote to General Harrison his famous 
dispatch, "We have met the enemy and they are ours; 
two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. " 



An Autumn Paradise 103 

Note. — If one is in Sandusky in autumn a most pleasureable 
excursion can be made to the peach orchards of Catawba Island. 
Peach raising is a somewhat prosaic industry the rest of the year. 
All the farming region around is prosperously attractive and in 
Sandusky itself there is the fish business and varied shipping to 
furnish interest. To the traveller, however, the scene of Perry's 
naval battle furnishes the chief attraction. Put-in-Bay on South 
Bass Island a few miles out in the lake should be visited to get as 
near as possible to where the encounter occurred. The island itself 
is a summer resort with a good deal of charm. 



VI 



FROM LAKE ERIE TO LAKE HURON 

IT was midnight. I was on a big lake steamer that 
was ploughing its way northward from Sandusky 
to Detroit. There were drowsy passengers in the 
upper part of the vessel, while down below was a fra- 
grant cargo of grapes and peaches to which the ship's 
employees helped themselves rather freely, for it was 
not much trouble to force a way through the frail cover- 
ings of the baskets. We had entered the Detroit River. 
The night was still, and the limpid waters of the broad 
channel were unruffled by the faintest breeze. Our 
vessel slipped along between shores brightened by 
frequent electric lights, and presently had made fast 
at our pier. Then I started out to get a lodging-place 
in the great, and to me strange, city. But at hotel after 
hotel I was met with the information that all the rooms 
were taken, and likewise every cot that could be 
crowded in. A state fair was in progress in the town, 
and the hotels could not accommodate the swarm of 
visitors; but they were doing their best. In the hall- 
ways men were sleeping on blankets, and in the hotel 
offices each chair was occupied by some person sitting 
out the long hours till morning. It was affirmed that 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 105 

some unfortunate seekers-after-lodgings would be 
obliged to walk the streets the entire night. 

I concluded I must take anything that offered, and at 
last I went into a shabby little fruit store that had a 
card in the window advertising rooms. This time I got 
a favorable reply, and the Italian in charge led the way 
to a large upstairs room where he lit a dim and smoky 
lamp. There were three beds in the apartment. These 
nearly filled the floor space, and each had an occupant. 
My landlord roused one of the sleepers, and told him he 
was to share the bed with me. At that the occupant 
sat up and began to swear. So the landlord appealed 
to the next man. This individual was either too amiable 
or too sleepy to object, and the landlord left me and 
returned to his shop. 

The room was grimy and ill-odored, and both win- 
dows were tight shut. I opened the one next to my bed 
and slept in my clothes, or lay awake in them, and re- 
joiced that I had first chance at the air which drifted in. 
My room-mates stirred uneasily from time to time, 
and the inhospitable man in the middle bed who had 
spurned my company occasionally broke into a hearty 
round of profanity concerning the apartment and the 
bed, and went through some acrobatics as if he were 
fighting vermin. I, too, began to have itchy sensations, 
but whether they were merely an echo of the other 
man's uneasiness or had some real foundation I was 
uncertain. So I lay as still as I could hoping the 
creatures, if any there were, would not become aware 



io6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

of my presence; and when the laggard dawn came I 
made haste to escape. 

It seemed to me that my experiences in discovering 
Detroit were as strenuous in their way as those of the 
early explorers and settlers of the region. 

Certain French priests visited the vicinity in 1670, 
and nine years later La Salle sailed up the river in the 
Griffon, He was much impressed by the attractiveness 
of the country on either side. There were fine open 
fields, walnut and chestnut groves, and at a little dis- 
tance lofty forests. Flocks of turkeys and swans circled 
about, and from the deck of the vessel herds of deer 
could be seen roaming the meadows. All the voyagers 
united in praising this beautiful spot. 

A settlement was begun by the French in 1701 on the 
site of the modern Detroit. The first thought was for 
defense, and a palisade was promptly erected to inclose 
the little village. At first the colony did not thrive, and 
there were times when it was so weak its abandonment 
was contemplated. The most strenuous and distressing 
experience came in 1763, shortly after French supremacy 
on the Great Lakes had given way to that of the English. 
In May of the year mentioned there was a sudden Indian 
uprising under the leadership of the famous Pontiac. 
So widespread was the conspiracy, and so secretly and 
energetically were Pontiac's plans carried out that 
within ten weeks after the first blow was struck not a 
single post except Detroit remained in British hands 
west of Niagara. The Detroit fort was garrisoned by 




On the deck of a sailing vessel 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 107 

eight officers and one hundred and twenty men 
under the command of Major Gladwin. About forty 
fur traders were at the settlement, besides the Canadian 
residents whose white cottages lined either bank of the 
river. Within the stockade were about five score small 
houses, a group of barracks, a council house, and a 
church. The stockade consisted of a triple row of 
pickets twenty-five feet high, and above each gateway 
was a block house. The gates were closed at sunset, 
but a narrow wicket in one of the gateways, was kept 
open until nine o'clock. There were three small cannon 
in the fort, which were, however, badly mounted, and 
better calculated to terrify the Indians by the noise they 
made than by any actual damage they might do. 

Tradition affirms that on the day before the one set 
for the destruction of the garrison, Major Gladwin was 
informed of the plot by an Indian maiden in gratitude 
for kindness he had shown her. At any rate, though 
Pontiac in person directed the attack, it failed, and then 
began a v/eary siege. No white man could venture in 
daylight to step outside the little wicket or to show his 
head at a porthole without fear of Indian bullets. 
For weeks every officer and soldier was on guard night 
and day, and slept in his clothes with his gun beside him. 
They might have been starved out, had not a few, 
friendly Canadians smuggled in supplies. Some boats 
dispatched from Niagara to their aid were captured. 
Three men belonging to the boats excaped to the fort, 



io8 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

but the other members of the expedition were massacred 
in the Indians' camp. 

However, one of two small vessels that belonged to 
the fort slipped away down the river, went to Niagara, 
and succeeded in returning and landing fifty men at the 
fort, together with much-needed provisions and ammu- 
nition. One night the attention of the sentries was 
attracted by a mass of flames shooting up into the sky 
to the northward. The flames grew brighter and came 
nearer, and the sentries presently saw drifting down the 
river a huge fire-float, made of four bateaux filled with 
fagots, birch-bark, and tar. This had been prepared by 
the Indians with the intention that it should destroy 
the two schooners which were in the river opposite the 
fort. But the vessels were so anchored that it was easy 
for them to swing aside out of harm's way, and the 
blazing raft floated harmlessly by, lighting up the fort 
and the shores till it burned down to the water's edge. 

After the siege had continued about three months, 
reinforcements to the number of two hundred and 
sixty men arrived. The newcomers were eager to go 
forth against the Indians, and when Major Gladwin 
opposed such an attempt they declared they would 
either make the attack or leave. So a reluctant consent 
was given, and the troops sallied out at two o'clock one 
night to surprise the Indian camp. But the savages, 
who had been forewarned by some of the Canadians, 
ambushed the troops as they were crossing a bridge that 
spanned a little stream a mile and a half above the fort. 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 109 

and in the desperate fighting that ensued one hundred 
and fifty nine men were killed or wounded. The victory 
of Bloody Run, as the stream was ever afterward called, 
restored Pontiac's confidence and brought him many 
accessions. But help that he expected from the French 
did not come, his warriors presently began deserting, 
and he was forced to abandon the siege. It had lasted 
five months. 

The most vigorous fighting that occurred in this 
region, in the years that have elapsed since, was on 
Canadian territory up the river Thames. On the banks 
of this stream, a few miles above Chatham, the Ameri- 
cans engaged the British and Indians, in October, 181 3, 
and the great chief Tecumseh was killed. Tecumseh 
was a dreaded enemy, and in the hour of triumph the 
American soldiers disgraced themselves by the ferocity 
and barbarity with which they treated his lifeless body. 
Long afterward, it is said that some of them used to 
boast of having razor strops made of his skin. 

The fine farming district along the Thames recog- 
nizes Detroit as its greatest market and trading center, 
in spite of the tariff barrier. "Yes," said a Chatham 
man with whom I talked, "and the railroads generally 
run excursion trains every Thursday in summer to 
encourage us to go to the city. Often, I don't suppose 
it's any real advantage to trade there, but people fancy 
they can do better because it's such a big place. I 
know though that it's worth while to rig up in Detroit 
if you want tools, because the American tools are high- 



no Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

grade and the merchants there take off from the price 
the amount of the duty. They pay that themselves like. 
The Americans are great people for such schemes. Con- 
siderable smuggling is done, too. Lots of ladies go to 
Detroit lean and come out fat, they're wearing so much 
extra. Men would like to do the same thing, but they 
can't stow away so much in their clothing. People go 
down there wearing an old pair of shoes that will hardly 
hold together. They'll buy a new pair, put 'em on, and 
leave the old ones. One winter day I see the customs 
officers ketch an old Jew who was comin' along with 
three or four pairs of pants on. 'But it's cold,' he says. 
*A man may wear as much clothes as he likes in de 
vinter time.' " 

Later, when I was stopping at the French village 
of Belle River on the shores of Lake St. Clair, I made 
further inquiries about smuggling. The day was dark 
and misty, and I could hear the hoarse-voiced vessels 
greeting each other in the fog far away across the lake 
where was the channel of traffic. Quite a group of 
people had gathered on the piazza of the little hotel 
where I lodged. Some were connected with the hotel, 
others were loitering to and from the bar-room, and 
still others had taken refuge from the foggy precipita- 
tion. I chatted with an intelligent farmer. "There's 
all sorts of smuggling boats slipping back and forth," 
he said, "canoes, yawls, gasolene launches, and even 
steam yachts. They come over here and load up with 
poultry and other farm produce and then get away. 




%i 



O71 the hotel piazza 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron n I 

It's profitable, if they ain't ketched. A Belle River man 
tried smuggling fish a while ago, but the customs 
officers got onto the racket, and he was fined three 
hundred dollars. Most smuggling boats go across in the 
night. Coal oil is one thing they smuggle from the other 
side. A rowboat will go into some little crick and meet 
a team that has brought three barrels of oil. They put 
two barrels in the boat and tow one behind. But if the 
officers ketch 'em the team, boat, and everything are 
taken, and they're fined besides. A man has got to be 
pretty good and sharp to be a successful smuggler. 
"Sometimes men'U come over here in a launch, hire a 
team, and go for a ride. They'll stop at the farms and 
buy perhaps a hundred dozen of eggs and other things 
in similar big quantities, and say these are for their 
friends, but of course we know better. In the afternoon 
they are back to their launch and go away across the 
lake. They put the launch in the boathouse and nobody 
over there notices anything suspicious, because they 
don't unload until after dark. That is done every day. 
We have a custom-house man in our village, but he 
can't be everywhere at the same time, and he don't look 
for smugglers; for arresting 'em ain't a pleasant busi- 
ness. On the contrary it's sometimes dangerous. How- 
ever, if he sees 'em at it he has to do his duty." 

The hotel was near one end of the chief village street. 
Just to the south was a bridge that crossed the stream 
to which the village was indebted for its name, and on 
the opposite bank of the little river was pasturage. 



112 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

I could see some cows loitering there, and occasionally 
one wandered over into the village, but was promptly 
driven back by an alert collie dog. The street was 
straight and wide and long, and it was lined with trees, 
though not many of these were well grown. There were 
a number of stores and shops among the dwellings, but 
the only conspicuous building was the church. That 
was large, with a lofty spire surmounted by a gilt cross. 
It illustrated quite forcibly how much the monotony 
of a landscape is relieved by the presence of a steeple. 
The church spires furnish a very valuable accent. 

The people were apt to be swarthy in complexion, 
which a fellow-sojourner at the hotel explained by say- 
ing, "Their ancestors come here early, and there's a 
good sprinkHng of Indian into 'em." He added that 
they were unprogressive and narrow in their interests, 
and that they read little and got their information from 
hearsay; also that the women were inclined to use 
swear words when they wished to be emphatic, and 
were chiefly interested "in the style they can carry in 
powdering up and dressing." 

Most of the dwellings were small and looked rather 
exposed and dreary. Clear, level farm fields lay behind 
the village, but when one got a mile or two back there 
began to be orchards and patches of woodland. The 
hamlet was well supplied with hotels. There were four, 
but these were lodging-places only incidentally. Their 
chief purpose was to sell spirituous liquors. 

It was surprising to see how numerous were the 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 113 

visitors to the bar at the hotel where I lodged, and they 
seemed to represent all grades of society. One evening 
I sat in the hotel office chatting with some of the fre- 
quenters of the place — roughly dressed young farmers 
or tradesmen's employees for the most part. Beyond a 
partition was the bar, where we could hear the clink of 
glasses, and noisy conversation. The only one of my 
companions not a villager was a man who went through 
the region selling a liniment that was more especially 
for horses and cattle, but was good besides for all sorts 
of human sprains, cuts, and bruises. He left at least 
one bottle at each farmhouse, and collected a year later 
for whatever was used. This plan had made permanent 
customers of the entire countryside. 

I sat near the door so I could set it ajar a little when 
the atmosphere became unbearably rank with tobacco 
smoke. At intervals I could hear the rain falling. 
*' You'll see the people laughin' now after this rain," 
remarked one of my companions who was a brick mason. 
"They want to get some living for next year. So now 
they will put in their wheat. It has been too dry 
before. " 

"I expect I shall have hard driving for a day or two," 
commented the medicine peddler, "but my golly! 
spring is the time for mud here. In places the roads are 
so clayey you can't go on 'em when the frost is coming 
out. The clay rolls right up on your wheels and brings 
you to a standstill." 

"Our land is naturally swampy, " said one of the other 



114 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

men, ''but In the last few years we've drained it so we 
get pretty good crops. If you want to see fine farms 
though, you go farther back from the lake to where the 
Scotch have settled." 

"The Scotch are good farmers," observed the medi- 
cine man, "and they make money, but they're too close 
fisted. They'll go fifty miles for the sake of getting a 
thing a cent cheaper, without taking no account of the 
time they lose. " 

"We used to have to make a living by going to the 
woods," said the previous speaker. "We didn't need to 
go far. It was all woods here twenty-five years ago. 
The pines were cut first, and those old white pines were 
immense. Their tops towered up above all the other 
trees. Oak and walnut were cut next. Now they even 
get out ellum. They use it for making furniture." 

"I saw a man come into the village this afternoon 
with a double-barreled gun under his arm," said I, "and 
he was carrying a bird he had shot. It was a duck, I 
think." 

"No, it couldn't have been a duck," observed the 
mason. "If it had been he wouldn't have let it be seen. 
This is out-of-season for ducks. He'd have sneaked it 
in on the quiet, and if in spite of that you happened to 
see it he'd say he found it dead. What you saw must 
have been a hell-diver. It's body looks like a duck's, 
but its legs are long, and they're so far back it can't 
walk on dry land. It falls right over. You can't often 
get one. Every time you shoot it dives, and the chances 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 115 

are it is so quick your ammunition is wasted. They're 
not much good anyway. The flesh has a fishy taste, 
but some eat 'em. We've got hunters here who'll eat 
shikepokes — those broad-winged, long-legged beggars." 

The medicine man inquired if there was any fishing 
in the little river. "Yes," replied the mason, "fellows 
come from Detroit in launches and go up the stream 
back of the hotel, and every time they ketch a fish they 
bring it in here to show it and get a drink, even if it 
ain't more'n two inches long. If they ketch thirty or 
forty that means some business. 

"The river is more valuable to us for trapping than 
for fishing. But the best place for trapping is a big 
marsh in the south part of the county. The farmers go 
there in early November and camp around the edge till 
things freeze up solid, and they go again in March and 
April. They rent the privilege. Some days they make 
twenty-five dollars. Usually about four men go in 
company. They build a shack and set their traps. 
There's thousands of acres in the marsh. The men go 
about in a boat which they punt through the cat-tails 
and grass. Where they set a trap they mark the spot 
with a rag tied to a reed. Last year mushrat hides sold 
for from seventy-five cents to a dollar, but a few years 
ago we only got ten cents or a shilling. They tan 'em 
to make all sorts of deerskins out of 'em. Today you 
never know^what you're buying. A woman judges by 
the price whether she's getting a fine thing or not. 
Show her one hat for six dollars, and one for fifteen, 



Ii6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

and the fifteen dollar one will be her choice every time, 
though it may be just the same as the other. It's the 
price what does the selling. 

"We're getting eight and ten dollars for mink hides. 
They're small for so much money. A mink is slim and 
long and not much bigger than a mushrat. They're sly 
creatures. It ain't easy to ketch one. A trapper who 
gets half a dozen in a season thinks he's doin' well. 
Once in a while one gets caught in a mushrat trap. 
That's when he's in a hurry chasing a mushrat. They 
like mushrats to eat, and they like chickens, too." 

"That reminds me of when I was a boy," said the 
medicine peddler. "I heard a deuce of a racket among 
the chickens one night, and in the morning we found 
a weasel had got twenty-two of 'em. By hunting 
around I found his hole, and I waited there with a club 
until he poked his head out. Then I struck, and I 
didn't think I could possibly miss him, but my club 
only hit the spot where he'd been. Talk about bein' 
fooled — I didn't feel bigger'n a pin." 

"A man has to be pretty handy even with a gun to 
kill a weasel," affirmed the mason, "but no matter what 
you do the weasel will keep comin' up to peek out of his 
hole and see if you're lookin' at him until you go away 
or he's killed. 

"Mushrats are sly in their way, too. If the rat can 
get out of water with the trap he'll gnaw his leg off. 
Many a time I've found a leg in a trap in the morning, 
and I've caught mushrats that have lost a leg — yes, and 




The village sidewalk 



I 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 117 

those that have lost two legs. They're a night animal, 
but in the spring the high water drives 'em out of their 
holes, and you see 'em swimming around in the daytime. 

"This was a lot livelier place when the hunting was 
good, and when there was lumbering in the woods 
around here. The young fellows don't have much liking 
for farm life as things are now, and nearly all of 'em go 
to the city because they think there's lots of fun there. 
Besides, there ain't money enough in farming to suit 
'em. They feel sure they can make a bigger wad else- 
where. I was one of those guys myself. If I'd stayed 
on the old farm I'd have been worth five thousand 
dollars at least. Now I'm workin' for wages. I've got 
my day ahead of me, and that's all. But I like to work 
ten hours a day and then be free. No wonder farm help 
is scarce, when the hired man is expected to do chores 
after supper every day, and has also to put in some time 
Sundays. Then, too, the farmers don't like to see a 
hired man eat very much, and if he drinks two glasses 
of milk at a meal they charge him for one. 

"The girls have the same ideas about the country as 
the boys. They want to work in the stores and fac- 
tories. The only way to prevent 'em from leavin' home 
is to keep 'em barefoot. Once they get a good pair of 
shoes they'll walk away rather than stay here. Often 
they go to the bad in the city, and so do the boys. Very 
likely a fellow gets wages that look large to him, but 
unless he's a good old saver, there's nothing left after 
he's paid his board and other expenses — some necessary 



Ii8 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

and a good many not. A fellow who never used tobacco 
before he went away will come back in six months 
smokin' cigarets. The majority become bums. They 
strike a rough gang, and if there's bad holes anywhere 
in the city they get into 'em. 

"The fellows who stay in the country have their 
dissipations and extravagances, too. Lots of 'em get a 
rubber-tired rig, and run around in it, but that's com- 
paratively harmless. Some parents expect to safe- 
guard their children by givin' 'em an education. Of 
course, the children must have some schooling; but 
send 'em to the high school, and they're no good any- 
way. A few keep their heads level, but most get in a 
pretty fast gang. 

"Belle River has been dull enough for a long time, 
but lately it's had another setback. We always have 
played ball on Sunday until this year the priest put a 
stop to it because the players didn't come to mass. It's 
only a poor game we can play without the Sunday 
practice. Several of the players in the big leagues down 
in the States have come from here. Yes, this town 
has been famous for producing the best ball-players and 
fighters." 

His final statement was almost drowned by a clam- 
orous uproar in the bar-room. For some time we had 
heard an increasingly loud-voiced dispute going on 
there. But now it culminated in a struggle between the 
bar-tender and a customer. They grappled, and with 
ominous vigor and fierceness slammed and thrashed 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 119 

about until the bar-tender got his man to the door and 
threw him out into the night. 

Then the victor, perspiring and ruffled, came into 
the office and explained that he had trusted the man for 
drink some time before, and they had disagreed about 
the amount that was due. He soon returned to the bar, 
and one of our company remarked: "They didn't treat 
the fellow right. Either they ought to have kept his 
head clear by not letting him have so much, or they 
ought to have given him enough so he'd been helpless." 

I returned to the banks of the Detroit River the next 
day. The waterway is twenty-seven miles long and has 
an average width of a mile. Through this channel 
passes the overflow of the three great lakes above in a 
deep steady stream, unbroken by rapids or eddies. 
From year's end to year's end its height is practically 
stationary, but a northern gale will drive the Lake 
Huron water into it and cause it to rise a few inches, 
and a gale from the opposite direction causes a corres- 
ponding fall. 

No other of the world's waterways is the scene of 
such an amount of commerce. Most of the freight 
passes down on its way to the cities of the east. Only 
about a third as much goes in the other direction. Coal 
is the principal item in the up-bound traffic, while the 
southward loads consist largely of iron ore, grain, flour, 
and lumber. The fleet of vessels on the lakes is enor- 
mous. They themselves burn yearly no less than three 
million tons of coal — enough to heat every home in two 



120 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

such cities as Chicago for a twelve-month. The monster 
freighters are quite impressive, moving so steadily and 
swiftly up or down the river with a greenish wave curl- 
ing smoothly away from either side of the bow. Besides 
the iron hulled, steam propelled vessels, there is still an 
occasional wooden sailing vessel, with graceful masts 
and wing-like spread of canvas, and I could not help 
thinking that to voyage in one of those must be much 
more romantic and pleasurable than in the prosaic 
modern iron ships. 

One day a casual acquaintance interested me in 
Marysville on the St. Clair River, a little south of the 
thriving city of Port Huron. According to this infor- 
mant it was a sleepy, decadent village, twenty years 
behind the times, without the inhabitants being aware 
of the fact. Its people were chiefly river pirates, and 
proud to be known as such; but if I would like to see 
the lowest strata of waterside dwellers I must hunt up 
the "river rats." They were downright thieves, and 
the pirates despised them. A river rat would carry off 
anything he could lay his hands on — he would steal 
from his best friend. As for the pirates, they simply 
took possession of whatever of value they found washed 
up on shore or floating down the river, the owner of 
which was not promptly on hand to prove his claim. 
Logs made up the bulk of their gains. These came to 
them marked on the butts with the stamp of the owner, 
but the pirates simply sawed the butts off and let the 
swift current carry them away. Then no one would be 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 121 

able to prove who the logs had originally belonged to. 
They had a particularly rich harvest when a raft 
broke up. 

I expected to find a rude, shabby hamlet whose free- 
booting inhabitants would be decidedly romantic. It 
was, however, a quiet little place of orderly cottages, 
grassy yards and tidy gardens, with fruit trees close 
about, and elms and maples shadowing the streets. 
Yes, and there were two or three churches; and a group 
of children on a street corner were talking religion. 

"We're going to have a plenary indulgence next 
Sunday," remarked one of the girls. 

"What in blazes is that?" asked a companion, and 
then turning to the others added, "Myrtle has swal- 
lowed the dictionary, and it's coming up in pieces." 

I sought out the oldest Inhabitant and inquired about 
river pirates, taking care to do so gently that I might 
not hurt his feelings in case he happened to be one him- 
self. He was a good deal mystified. As a matter of 
fact, he said the people were mostly employed at neigh- 
boring salt works, and I thought best to change the 
subject and ask about old times. 

"My folks moved to Port Huron when I was a baby, " 
said the old man. "There was just sand and scrub 
oaks where the center of the town is now. The first 
steam sawmill anywhere in this part of the country had 
been built there, and father worked in it. They were 
getting out splendid timber, but it brought no price 
till the time of the Civil War. There was as yet no great 



122 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

amount of traffic on the lakes, and only an occasional 
little sailing vessel or small steamer passed up or down 
the river. 

"We saw rather more of Injuns than we did of whites 
at first. They were always travellin' back'ards and 
for'ards here. In the fall they'd come over from Canada 
and go up Black River. Maybe there'd be thirty 
canoes. The Injuns would paddle up the little river 
and gather cranberries and stay all winter in the woods 
hunting, and in the spring they'd make maple sugar. 
Their canoes was often dugouts of pine or white ash, 
and I've seen a canoe made out of a butternut tree that 
would hold twenty-five men. Often they'd camp near 
the mill and put up wigwams made out of ellum bark. 
For weapons they mostly used bows and arrows. 

"My companions was principally young Injuns, and 
I've played with 'em many a day. I got so I could 
understand their language pretty well, and I could work 
a canoe or shoot with a bow as well as any of 'em. I 
gol! we had more fun with black squirrels than any- 
thing else. Say, those squirrels were thick, and they 
were fine eatin'. We'd go ketchin' 'em in the little 
scrubby oaks. If we see a squirrel on the ground we'd 
take after him and chase him up a tree. Then we'd 
throw clubs and shoot arrows at him. Sometimes we'd 
shake a squirrel out of a tree and ketch him in our hands 
to carry home and put in a cage. They'd bite like Sam 
Hill and make your blood fly, but we never used to 




Ancient mariners 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 123 

mind it. As soon as we could, we'd grip 'em by the 
head so they couldn't use their teeth. 

"I often went with the Injun boys in a dugout to a 
marsh to spear fish. You have to be a little careful 
about navigatin' a dugout. It turns over easy, and I've 
been dumped out and got a soakin' more'n once. We'd 
get a mess of fish and then divide 'em. The Injun boys 
was inclined not to be fair about the dividing and would 
take much more than their share. But one white boy 
is equal to a dozen of 'em. I'd draw off with my paddle 
and slap 'em right and left, and they'd give in. I never 
was afraid of an Injun no more than I was of a squirrel. 
I heard stories of their scalping, but I never seen any on 
'em who had much courage. An Injun will make a big 
splur, and you'd think he was goin' to eat you, and yet 
if you walk right up and give him a smash in the mouth, 
he's gone. We kept a sharp watch of 'em when they 
came around our homes. They don't steal, but they 
swipe, and they'll take a thing from right under your 
eyes and deny it. 

"An Injun never forgets a favor — I'll say that for 
'em. One night I was in the sawmill workin' around 
the engine, and I glanced up and for an instant saw a 
pair of eyes lookin' in at the window. I went to the 
door, but I couldn't see where in the dickens the owner 
of those eyes had gone to. So I continued with my 
work, at the same time keepin' watch of the window. 
Pretty soon the eyes were there again, and I jumped out 
and grabbed someone and drew him inside. It was an 



124 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Injun, and his wrists was handcuffed together. He 
held 'em up and shook the chain. * Yow, yow!' he said. 

"He'd been locked up somewhere for gettin' drunk. 
I took a cold chisel and got the handcuffs off, and the 
Injun was away like a flash. I didn't see him till the 
next fall. Then he came in a canoe and brought me a 
haunch of venison and some maple sugar and other 
stuff to show his gratitude. 

"But if an Injun thinks you've done him an injury 
he's mean. He'll remember that injury longer than he 
will a favor — you bet your bottom dollar he will, and 
he'll get even with you. 

"It was a perfect wilderness here when I was young, 
and the woods were full of game, and the water full of 
fish. Partridges were very plentiful and we got to know 
where they lived and which were their drumming logs. 
I've killed any amount of quail and wild turkeys. I 
shot a wild turkey right in that pine tree across the 
road, thirty-six years ago. There were lots more mush- 
rats than there are now, and the Injuns were fond of 
'em for food. I like 'em myself, and so would you if you 
et 'em without knowin' what they were. We had all the 
venison we wanted. We could go to an Injun camp and 
buy a nice venison ham for twenty cents, or twenty-five 
at the outside; or perhaps father would shoot a deer. 
He'd send us boys to the woods leadin' a hound with a 
rope. By and by we'd let the dog go, and like enough in 
ten minutes we'd hear him bay. The animal the dog 
stirred up would make for the water by one of their 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 125 

runways. The old hunters knew their nature just as 
well as we do that of a horse, and father could tell pretty 
near where to stand to shoot when the deer came out of 
the woods. If the deer got into the water he'd follow it 

with a boat. 

"Our guns weren't good for anything. The first I 
remember were all old flintlocks, and you had to carry 
a great big cowhorn at your side full of powder. Your 
gun wouldn't go off half the time that you pulled the 
trigger, and when it did go off it made so much smoke 
you couldn't see. Some of 'em, my gracious 1 would 
kick you down — yes, and kick you after you was down; 
and they wouldn't shoot hardly across the road. You'd 
see a deer perhaps six or eight rods off. Click! your 
gun would go without discharging, and the deer would 
be out of sight in a jiffy. But the deer wouldn't run 
far, and you could steal up and try again. They were 
tame. Lots of mornings in the late fall and early winter 
I've seen as many as half a dozen feeding at our wheat 

stack. 

"Sometimes a buck would charge you. I don't 
recall any other wild animals which showed that much 
courage. I've seen a good many bears, but they'd run 
like the very old Nick from you. I never had much use 
for a bear. I'd save the hide, but the meat is greasy 
and coarse. I can't say I relish it, and I'd give away a 
chunk to anyone that would accept it and throw the 

rest away. 

"Of all the wild birds the pigeons were the most 



126 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

numerous. As recently as twenty-five years ago they 
flew so thick I couldn't see the sun, but since the country 
has been cleared up, and their nesting-places spoiled, 
they've all gone. They were a bluish color with a long 
tail, and the male had a red breast. The spring, or the 
fore part of summer, was the time for the great flocks. 
A tamarack swamp near here was a favorite nesting- 
place, and I've seen eighteen nests there on a single tree. 
The nests were a few little sticks across a limb close to 
the tree-trunk. Only two eggs would be laid in a nest. 
After the young were old enough to fly, the birds scat- 
tered, but they were still pretty thick in places where 
food was plenty. If a man had a field of wheat or any- 
thing like that ripening he had to watch it and protect 
it from them; and in the autumn you'd find a good 
many in the woods where there were beechnuts. 

"Their big flights were made early in the morning, 
and they went very swift. If the wind blew hard they 
flew high, but in a light warm south wind they flew low, 
just skimming along over the water or the ground or the 
treetops. You could throw clubs at 'em and get all the 
birds you wanted in a little while, or you could take a 
stout sapling with twigs on the end and whip 'em 
down. I'd go with my shotgun right over next to the 
woods beside a stump, and at every discharge they'd 
drop like hailstones. Some men made a business of 
trapping and killing 'em to ship off, but I just got 'em 
for fun to eat and to give around to everyone that 
wanted 'em. I remember once when I'd got up early 




o 

<1 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 127 

to shoot pigeons my wife brought out a big bushel 
basket about nine o'clock, and we carried it back 
heapin' full. 'I don't know what we're goin' to do with 
all of 'em,' I says. 

" 'I know,' says she. 'We're goin' to pick 'em.' 

"Well, we dressed 'em and filled the boiler and the 
kittles, and she cooked 'em. Then she put 'em away in 
crocks, pickled the same as pigs' feet, and flavored with 
cloves. They were fine for lunch — yes, beautiful. 
When I felt a little hungry I'd take a fork and go get 
one to eat with bread and butter. It made a good meal. 

"We had log houses, and at first the roofs were of 
split shakes. Later we had handmade shingles. That's 
what I've got on this house. They were put on fifty-one 
years ago, and the roof ain't leaked a drop since. Some 
old codger who was kind o' played out would take a 
supply of pork and potatoes and go off to the woods 
where there was some big pines suitable for his pur- 
pose on government land, and camp for the winter 
and make shingles. Toward spring he'd get someone 
to come with a yoke of oxen and draw his shingles out. 
He'd sell 'em for seventy-five cents or so a thousand. 
You couldn't buy 'em today for five dollars, and they 
can't be got as good at any price. 

"The lumber company was glad to sell its cut-off 
land for ten shillings an acre. Oh, gol! those old 
farmers got rich. They picked right up. Say for in- 
stance you had a piece of land cleared, you could plant 
potatoes and such like, and sell all you raised to the 



128 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

soldiers that were stationed here. The potatoes were 
great big fellows. We'd get a peck out of a hill. You 
could buy a first-class nice cow for ten dollars, and at 
that price you could afford to sell your butter cheap. 
It had to be awful good to bring ten cents a pound. 
The cattle run in the woods wherever they had a mind 
to, and it was no expense raisin' 'em. Oh, this used to 
be a pretty good place for a poor man! 

"One cow belonging to each farmer wore a bell, and 
people knew the different bells by the sound. The cows 
fed in company, and when a boy went to get his own 
cows he brought all the cows along to the village to be 
milked. After the weather begun to get cold in the fall 
they'd come up to the farm buildings every night of 
their own accord, and we'd yard 'em. We had wheat- 
straw and stalks and hay to winter 'em on. 

"Just outside our yard fence was a trough dug out 
of a big log, and into that we emptied the skim milk we 
didn't want to use, and the swill, for the hogs. They 
ran free in the woods, too; but they didn't get wild, and 
the only drawback was that the bears now and then 
killed some of 'em. Yes, there were hundreds of hogs 
runnin' loose, and in the autumn they got fat on the 
shack — that is, the acorns and the beech and hazel nuts. 
They lived right in the forest the whole year. Just 
before winter set in we'd hitch the oxen to a sled and 
drag around through the woods, and when we saw a 
good big hog father would say, 'Take that feller!' and 
we'd shoot it. We killed what hogs we wanted and 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 129 

brought 'em home on the sled; and you never'd hear a 
word among the neighbors about, * You've got my hog.' 
There was enough for everyone. 

"In later years the people used to have a bee when 
they wanted to lay in a supply of pork. All the boys 
and dogs would go chasing through the woods and drive 
the porkers into a pen in some man's yard, where a little 
corn or wheat had been scattered. Then each man 
would take as many as he wanted and the rest would be 
turned loose. 

"On that new ground of ours an acre of wheat, if it 
was anyways good, would furnish enough flour to last 
a big family two years. We stacked the wheat near the 
barn and thrashed it as we wanted it. Say it was a 
stormy morning so we couldn't work outdoors to ad- 
vantage, we'd flail out four or five bushels, get our oxen 
and carry it to mill. We couldn't tell how soon we'd 
get back — depended on how many were ahead of us. 
Maybe we'd be gone two hours, maybe all day. 

"Any amount of blackberries, strawberries, and 
raspberries grew on the cut-off land, and it was nothing 
uncommon to find a hollow tree with six or seven hun- 
dred of honey in it. Father got to be a real expert bee 
hunter, and he'd follow a swarm for miles to find their 
honey hoard. If we wanted maple sugar we could go 
to the Injuns and exchange fifty pounds of flour or a 
chunk of pork worth perhaps seventy-five cents for a 
hundred pounds of sugar put up in a nice birch-bark 
box. Often we'd make our own sugar. Half a dozen of 



130 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

us would go into the woods and build a camp, tap trees, 
and take turns boiling. Oh, we fared well, and the only 
fault I could find with this country was that there 
wa'n't any fruit to amount to anything. 

"We had stiddy cold weather during the winter, 
except for a thaw in January. About the first of April 
the weather would break, the snow melted, and we'd 
get the crops started. We didn't mind the cold of the 
winters. If you had a good ax, and there was a couple 
of stoves in the house you could keep as warm as you 
wanted to without expense. The more wood you 
burned the better, because that helped to clear the land. 
We'd fell the trees in the near woods, trim off the 
branches, and hitch on our oxen and draw 'em to the 
door, where we'd cut 'em up. We had no matches. 
Flint and steel served instead. We'd get punk in a 
rotten soft maple tree, dry it, and use it to strike sparks 
into. Some of the old men carried a flint and steel in 
their pockets to light their pipes. In summer, if there 
was a hollow elm handy, either standing or fallen, 
we'd start a fire in that. It would burn maybe for 
months, and we'd bring coals from it whenever we 
needed to kindle our house fires. 

"After a while we kept sheep, and my mother spun 
all the yarn for our stockin's, and all the thread for our 
woolen clothes. Them was the shirts and things to 
wear! They was thick as a board. Mother would often 
be up spinning till ten at night. I had a couple of sisters 
older'n me, and they'd generally knit of an evening. 



From Lake Erie to Lake Huron 131 

Probably us fellers would be crackin' nuts. A roustin' 
good fire would be burnin' in the fireplace, and it was 
very cheerful in the old kitchen. 

"The woolen thread was sent away to be wove into 
cloth, but we done our own coloring. In the fall we'd 
get a woman who understood makin' clothes to come 
and stay in the family a while and make us two suits all 
around. A shoemaker would come in the same way and 
make footwear for us out of leather we'd bought. 

"After I grew up I worked summers on the lake 
vessels. I've sailed all over these lakes and been out in 
some pretty rough weather. I've set right down on the 
cabin floor to eat, when the vessel was rolling bad in a 
storm. The table would be bottom side up, and the 
stove all smashed to pieces, and I'd hold my plate in my 
lap and slide back and forth as the waves pitched the 
boat this way and that. But in the course of time I 
decided to settle down, and here I've lived ever since. 
With the associations it has with my youth no other 
region can compare with this for me. " 

I came away feeling very well satisfied with what I 
had learned from the oldest inhabitant; yet I confess 
to some lingering regrets that he was not a pirate. 



Note.— Detroit is one of the great industrial centers of America, 
and as such is decidedly interesting. It has had a noteworthy his- 
tory which also lends to its attraction, and its suburban resorts along 
the river are famous for their beauty. Here the shipping of the lakes 
passing up and down the narrow waterway can be seen to excep- 



132 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

tional advantage. The great freighters are almost constantly in 
sight, for the amount of traffic on these freshwater seas, with more 
than thirty million people living in the states bordering their shores, 
is tremendous. Among the other craft you may see one of the 
aristocrats of the lake fleet — a passenger steamer. These steamers 
are models of comfort, the larger and more recent ones resembling 
in style and size the ocean liners, and the cost of travelling in them 
is wonderfully low. Of the freighters the type of vessel that has the 
most curious individuality is the whaleback, a blunt-ended hulk 
with rounded gunwales, which from its appearance and its manner 
of rooting and rolling about in the waves has gained the nickname 
of the "pig." These vessels are unique and picturesque, but not 
entirely successful; for they are so rigid a slight bumping against 
wharves or locks makes the steel plates cut the rivets. 

It is easy to make a jaunt into Canada from Detroit, and a visit 
to some of the little French Canadian villages furnishes a most 
agreeable experience. 

A pleasant way to see the country along the waterside from De- 
troit to Port Huron is to go by trolley the entire sixty miles. 




Ringing the schoolbell 



VII 

A MICHIGAN FOREST FIRE 

ALPENA on Thunder Bay" had sounded very 
attractive to me; for was not the name of the 
town suggestive of the Alps, and that of the bay 
no less suggestive of rocky shores and storms and tragic 
wrecks? But there are no mountains, and there are no 
rocks, and the Bay is no more subject to storms than 
are the adjacent waters of Lake Huron. Indeed, the 
Bay is quite mild, with low, wooded shores, except oppo- 
site the city. There the sawmills have taken possession, 
and their stacks of rubbish and piers piled with lumber 
reach out into the shallows and monopolize the water- 
front for miles. I questioned one of the local residents 
about the name of the Bay. 

"Most names," said he, "are given by chance. 
Probably some early exploring party encountered a 
heavy thunderstorm here. I'll give you an instance of 
how names start. My father owned a tract of land 
where a few shacks had been put up, and he called it 
'Shanty Plain.' You'll find good buildings and nice 
farms there now, but it still retains the old name. " 

I visited one of the bayside sawmills where some of 
the remnants of Michigan's great forests are being 
converted into building material. The state originally 



134 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

included the most notable white pine region in the 
world, and by 1850 lumbering was an important indus- 
try. Even as late as 1890 four-fifths of the state was 
reported to be forested. But now the former woodland 
is largely denuded, and practically no white pine is left. 

On the water near the mill were many acres of floating 
logs restrained by booms, and these logs were moving 
up the runways and disappearing in the mill at the rate 
of more than one a minute. Everywhere the air was 
athrill with the shrill, high-keyed voice of the saws. 
The speed with which they sliced the logs into boards 
and planks and beams was marvellous, and it was sur- 
prising how few men were needed to guide the com- 
plicated machinery. As if by magic, after the length- 
wise sawing was done, the lumber was trimmed free of 
all waste, cut to regular lengths, and sorted, and then 
it was loaded on trucks that were dragged away by 
horse power on light railways to be piled for drying. 
The lumber is not shipped at once lest the moisture in 
it should ferment and discolor the wood and start decay. 
The drying process lasts at least a month or two, and 
if the weather is wet or cold a decidedly longer delay is 
necessary before it is safe to pack the lumber in a close 
mass in the holds of the freight steamers. 

A little river joins the bay at Alpena, and serves as a 
highway for logs cut along side it for fifty miles or more 
back inland. "They've been lumbering there ever since 
I can remember, and I'm thirty-seven years old," said 
one man with whom I talked, "but not much is lef^ 



A Michigan Forest Fire 135 

worth cutting. While I was still in my teens I began to 
go in the woods working at the lumber camps in the 
winter. Them days we wouldn't take hardwood or 
hemlock and this small scrubby stuif — we wouldn't look 
at it. We'd cut the hemlock trees, but after we'd peeled 
'em in order to sell the bark to the tanneries, we left the 
logs to rot." 

The man was chopping near the road in a bit of young 
forest that fire and wind had reduced to a blackened 
prostrate tangle. I asked him what had happened to 
his woodland. "Well, sir, I'll tell you," he replied. 
"Two years ago a fire got in here. I don't know how it 
started. Probably some of the Alpena boys set it. I 
carried water, and I shoveled dirt on the fire, and my 
neighbors helped me. Sometimes we'd think we'd got 
it out, but it was burning in dry muck full of little fine 
roots. There it would smoulder, and the first thing we 
knew a spark would appear at the surface and the fire 
was running through the woods like the dickens again. 
I fought it day and night, for I'd only recently bought 
the farm., and to have my woodland all burnt over 
meant quite a loss to me. But there wa'n't much use. 
The fire took oif about four inches of mucky surface, 
below which was sand. That left the trees with nothing 
for their roots to grip, and the first wind bent 'em over. 
So here they are all layin' with their roots up, and of 
very little value even for firewood. 

"I thought I was goin' to get a good start this year, 
but we had a white frost on the Fourth of July which 



136 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

killed my cucumbers and all like that and hurt my 
potatoes badly. Our season is a little too short, but 
you take the Poles and the Germans whoVe settled 
through here — they're thrifty people, and most have 
got some money ahead. They spend little, and the 
whole family works. That's one trouble with this 
region, the men expect the women to work harder than 
they do themselves. " 

I walked on out into the country. The woods 
were taking on a tinge of autumnal yellow, sumachs 
reddened the pastures, and a bleak wind that pres- 
aged the approach of winter was blowing. At times 
the sky was gloomed with threatening clouds, and then 
they would drift away and leave a clear, deep blue sky. 
To escape from the chill blast I made a call at a country 
school. The building was of wood, but was painted to 
imitate brick. The yard was unshaded, and there was 
brushy cut-off land roundabout. A log schoolhouse 
had been in use five years previous, the young woman 
teacher informed me, but it was now a hog pen on the 
premises of a neighboring farmer. The present building 
was not erected on the spot where I saw it. Con- 
siderable strife had been aroused over the question of 
its placing, and after it was finished a dissatisfied crowd 
got together and moved it to the location it now 
occupies. 

The teacher was intelligent and faithful, but she was 
without special training, and the children, who were 
from various foreign-speaking families, were not making 




Clearing up the burnt land 



A Michigan Forest Fire 137 

very brilliant progress. Their reading, for instance, 
was expressionless, stumbling, and stupid — an exercise 
in the recognition of words — not in the apprehension of 
ideas. Right in the center of the room was a big stove 
which baked the children near it, while those on the 
farther edges might be shivering. The teacher got to 
the schoolhouse at half-past eight in the morning, made 
the fire, swept, and then rang the bell that hung in a 
little cupola perched on the front gable. She said she 
had a comfortable boarding-place, but that the teachers 
in some rustic districts fared hardly in that respect. 

After I left the schoolhouse I followed a side road 
until it dwindled to a grassy trail that showed only the 
faintest ruts of wheels, and here I found a little log 
house inhabited by a Swedish family. There was no 
cellar under it, for the ground was too wet. Moreover, 
the earth was exceedingly stony, and the Swede affirmed 
that the stones extended clear down to the old country. 
He had neither a horse nor a cow, and the only tool he 
used in starting his potatoes in the unplowed stump- 
land was a hoe. His children walked to school, a dis- 
tance of three and a half miles. "But that's nothing 
to a kid," said he. "It does 'em good to get out and 
hustle, and besides they often ketch a ride in winter." 

He soon turned the subject of our conversation to 
politics, and informed me that he was a socialist. His 
place did not seem to indicate any superlative ability as 
a manager, yet I discovered that he had very definite 



138 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

notions as to how to manage the affairs of the entire 
country. 

Not far from Alpena occurred in 1908 one of the most 
tragic of Michigan's forest fires. There was a con- 
siderable loss of life, and the town of Metz was com- 
pletely wiped out. Most of the lives were lost on a 
freight train that was attempting to carry a load of 
Metz dwellers to safety. The engineer of the train 
survived, and I called on him at his home in Alpena. 
I had been told that he was terribly burned and "had an 
awful-lookin' face on him yet." Certainly he would 
carry the scars as long as he lived. 

"Metz," said he, "was a place of two hundred in- 
habitants — a sort of trading center and sawmill village. 
It was burned on October fifteenth. There'd been fires 
all summer, and often the smoke in the air was so dense 
we could hardly see a hundred yards, and it made our 
eyes smart. That October day I got to Metz about 
noon and waited for orders. I was there several hours, 
and no orders came. We knew by the smoke that a big 
fire was burning off west of us, and a hurricane was 
driving it in our direction. The village was wedged in 
between two pieces of woodland, and on the windward 
side were great heaps of ties and posts along the railroad, 
and on that side, too, was a sawmill with many months' 
accumulation of sawed lumber around it. The place 
was doomed, and would evidently be so hot and swept 
by flames that no one could stay there and survive. 
It was decided that some of the women and children and 




The pump at the back door 



A Michigan Forest Fire 139 

old people should go out of the threatened region on the 
train. After loading a lot of furniture and valuables on 
a box car, fifty or sixty of them with their bundles and 
bags got on one of these iron gondola coal cars. The rest 
of the train consisted of four other coal cars, three of 
'em loaded with cedar posts and one with hemlock bark, 
which we thought we could save. 

"The smoke rolled in, and it got as dark as night, and 
then the fire swept into one corner of the village and the 
church began to burn. I couldn't wait for orders any 
longer, and we started, but we hadn't gone far when we 
overtook a man and his wife. They were on their way 
down the track to their home, about two miles away. 
I took them onto the engine. They were distressed 
about their children who were at home with no one to 
look after 'em except an awful old woman— their grand- 
mother. But she took 'em over to a field, and they 
escaped. It was so dark I couldn't see on ahead, and I 
couldn't tell whether I was running into danger or not. 
I thought the fire was behind us, but we soon were in 
burning woods. Then the bark which was on a car just 
behind the tender caught on fire, and burning pieces 
began to fly back onto the people in the open car. 

''A little farther on we came out of the woods, and 
here on a siding a number of cars loaded with tan-bark 
were standing. On the other side of the main track 
were piles of cedar posts, and the bark and posts were 
all on fire, though I didn't know it until we were right 
between 'em. Then the engine went off the track. The 



140 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

rails had been warped by the heat. We couldn't have 
stopped in a worse place for those that were on the 
engine. There was fire on each side, and the car of bark 
back of the tender was burning fiercely. The man and 
woman jumped off, and the fireman got into the water 
tank, while I ran around in the cab and on the tender 
looking out this way and that amid the flying sparks 
trying to see if there was some chance to escape. It 
was then I was burnt. My only hope was with the 
fireman in the tank, and I got in there. We were 
shoulder deep in the water, and we kept splashing it up 
on each other's faces to get some relief from the suf- 
focating smoke. I was burned worse than the fireman, 
but I seemed to be standing it better than he did. When 
he showed signs of collapse I'd slap and shake him. 

"Tan bark will burn a long time, and it makes a ter- 
rible hot fire — hot as a lot of oil barrels, and the heat 
from the car behind and the cars on the side track was 
warming up the tank. I made up my mind I'd get out 
of there. By then the cedar posts had burned down 
considerable, and I put my hand up once or twice and 
felt that the heat on that side was not nearly as bad as 
it had been. We could hardly speak. I was chokin' 
and he was chokin', but we managed to say enough to 
agree to climb out and try to get away. So out I 
jumped and ran along beside the engine. The coals 
lay there a foot deep, and my shoes was burned so the 
leather cracked, but I got beyond the embers of the 
cedar piles and turned to look for the fireman. I 



A Michigan Forest Fire 141 

thought he'd be right behind me. He didn't come, and 
I went on alone following the track toward Posen, the 
next town, three miles distant. There was fire all the 
way and once or twice I thought I was goin' to get 
ketched again. With what I'd gone through, and the 
exertion of running, I was pretty near all in when I got 
to Posen, and I had to spend six months in the hospital. 

"The fireman never left the tank. The hose burnt 
off and let the water out. Then it was just like an oven 
in there, and he couldn't have lasted long. The man 
and woman on the engine with us burned, and so did the 
brakeman; but the people on the coal car were not so 
surrounded by fire as we were, and their case was not so 
hopeless. Thirteen of 'em perished, and the balance 
of 'em escaped. Two managed to return to Metz. The 
rest got away to open fields. Some had their hands 
and faces painfully blistered, but only a few were per- 
manently disfigured. Those of the Metz people who 
weren't on the train got out on the cultivated land and 
passed through the fire uninjured." 

Metz had been rebuilt, and I determined to see it. 
The place proved to be something like a Wild West 
village of the arid regions in appearance. It stands on a 
treeless, sandy waste where grow scanty patches of 
grass and weeds, and the buildings are of the plainest 
type, some of them mere shacks. The only thing burn- 
able that did not burn was a tall cedar flagpole. This 
had been set in place a few days before the fire, and the 
wood was full of sap. It stood close to a store, and the 



142 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

flames bit into it slightly on that side, but otherwise it 
was unharmed. 

A mile and a half down the track is the place where 
the freight train burned. This was such a peaceful spot 
when I saw it that I could hardly realize it had been 
the scene of a dire tragedy. Here was a siding growing 
to thistles, which half concealed a strewing of rusty 
stoves and pieces of iron beds that had been on the 
ill-fated train. Roundabout were open fields, two or 
three farmhouses were in sight, and I could hear the 
pastoral tinkle of cowbells, the singing of birds, the 
hum of insects. 

The region had not been by any means densely 
wooded, and I wondered that such a ravaging fire 
could have swept it. Everywhere the forest was 
checkered with farms, and it did not appear as if a fire 
could run fast or far. Yet rarely did even the smallest 
patch of trees escape, and when I looked from rising 
ground, that dreary desolation of bare-twigged, black- 
ened woodland stretched away on all sides to the 
horizon. Some trees that were not quite dead were 
putting forth a few struggling shoots from their fire- 
scarred trunks, and there was a thick undergrowth of 
saplings and weeds. 

I rambled out among the farms and stopped to eat 
dinner with a hospitable German family. Their house 
was a comfortable, fair-sized dwelling, but not very 
substantial or shapely, and rather untidy in its sur- 
roundings. It was well off the main highway and was 




Grubbing up stumps 



A Michigan Forest Fire 143 

approached by a ponderously fenced lane where the 
pigs rooted in great content. We sat at table in the 
kitchen, with the sink on one side of us, and the cook- 
stove on the other. Before we began eating, the 
youngest daughter, a fresh, vigorous schoolgirl in her 
early teens rose and asked a long blessing in German. 

None of the family could speak of the fire without 
emotion, though they had fared far better than most of 
the neighbors. "About one o'clock that day we men- 
folks went to work drawing gravel," said the farmer. 
"We'd got one load on when we saw a big smoke over 
to the southwest. The wind was blowing hard and the 
smoke looked dangerous. My son-in-law who was 
helping us lived in that direction, some four miles 
away. Says I, *You get right back home.' 

"He had his gun with him, and he agreed to shoot 
it three times if he thought from what he saw on the 
way that the fire was comin' here. He couldn't have 
gone half the distance when we heard his gun, and he 
shot a dozen times which made us conclude things were 
pretty serious. We quit work and went to the house. 
The boy was getting out a pair of horses intending to 
start ploughing. 'Go right back into the stable with 
'em,' I says, 'and take their harnesses off and turn 'em 
into the field. ' 

"Then we went to pumping, and filled everything on 
the place that would hold water. We could hear the 
fire now comin' with a roar like a heavy thunderstorm. 
Pretty soon it throwed into my woods. I went to the 



144 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

edge of the timber to see if there was any chance to 
stop it. I saw there wasn't and I said, ' Let her go. ' 

"My wife had been to call on a neighbor. By and by 
she came home and she kept saying, 'We're all goin' to 
burn. ' 

" *No,' says I, 'we won't.' I had to repeat that half 
a dozen times and tell her to get right to work. 

"Well, it did look as if the whole world was comin' 
to an end, but we stayed right here and fought the fire. 
It was dark at four o'clock already. The smoke was so 
thick we were all choked with it, and everybody was 
holdin' their eyes when they had a chance. The wind 
would shoot the flames right over the treetops, and then 
down into the fields. Big balls of fire were flyin' through 
the air clear across my farm, so that almost at once the 
woods on the other side were burning. I had a pile of 
ties worth two hundred dollars in a field half a mile from 
the woods, but they burned. When that freight train 
from Metz went past we could hear the people on it 
hollerin' and cryin'. The car in front and the car behind 
were on fire, and it was a lucky thing the train got 
wrecked. Otherwise, they'd all burnt. 

"We wet things down pretty thoroughly, but our 
buildings caught fire again and again. I'd set watchers 
here and there on the premises, and I had one of my 
sons take ofi" his shoes so he could walk stockin'-foot 
around on the house-roof. Once the boy who was 
watching the barn shouted that he'd seen a great big 
flame go right in the barn window. Sure enough, the 







^ 



O 

ex 



146 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

was what they took under their arms, and often that 
wasn't enough to make a pillow out of. 

"For two days the air was dense with smoke, and 
then we had a little rain. That cleared the air and put 
out the smouldering embers. The fire burned a strip 
twelve miles wide and only stopped when it got to the 
lake. It took more than half the scattered houses — 
yes, I guess three-fourths of them. Occasionally a life 
was lost, and there were a good many narrow escapes, 
and some persons were so crippled up they were never 
good for anything afterward. One of my sons taught 
school five miles south of here. When he noticed how 
heavy the smoke was gettin' he took the children to 
their homes and then started for his own home on his 
bicycle, and he was almost burned comin' through a 
swamp that was on fire. Then there was the old folks — 
my wife's father and- mother. The old lady was sick 
abed, and when the old man saw that the fire was goin' 
to get their place he took her on his back and carried her 
to a neighbor's. Pretty soon that house was in danger, 
too. So he carried her to the cemetery, and stayed there 
until the fence was burning and the grass caught afire. 
Then he went to another neighbor's, and that house 
didn't burn. But the experience was too much for his 
wife. It finished her up, and she died in about five 
weeks. 

"Some of those whose homes burned slept out that 
cold October night. There was a woman and two 
children I know who did that. They had only the 



A Michigan Forest Fire 147 

clothes they wore, and the woman took off one of her 
skirts and wrapped it around the children. 

"Quite a few farm creatures were burned — some in 
the barns and sheds, and some in the woods. The hogs 
were in the woods after beechnuts, and the first thing 
they knew the fire had perhaps surrounded them. Lots 
of cattle and horses were caught in the same way. Oh, 
gosh! it was bad. 

"The fire ran through most of the grass in the fields, 
and the country was all black. She looked tough. 
There were a few grass patches on my farm that escaped 
and the cattle all piled in here and grubbed the grass up 
by the roots almost. The cattle usually got most of 
their feed in the woods, even in winter, but now nothing 
was left for them there. People were obliged to sell 
most of their stock, and they killed others to eat. They 
only kept one, two, or three head, and they had to buy 
feed to take care of those. The cattle they sold went 
for nearly nothing. Some of these cut-throat fellows 
came in and took advantage of our necessities, and 
picked up at small prices what the farmers were obliged 
to sell. There are always men who, when they see any- 
one in trouble, are ready to take the last cent he's got. 

"The railroad company built what they called a 
house for each burned-out family, but it wasn't fit for a 
dog to live in. It was just a slant-roof shanty, about 
twelve by fourteen feet, made of one thickness of boards 
and covered, roof and all, with tarred paper. During 
the winter the men got out timber in order to build, 



148 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

and the next spring most managed to put up some sort 
of a decent dwelling. Two years ago everybody was 
doin' well, and you'd have to hunt a long while before 
you'd find a farm you could buy. But that fire just 
fixed us in great shape. There's hardly a place now 
that can't be bought, and cheap, too. It was quite a 
setback even for me, though none of my family were 
hurt and none of my buildings were burned. We had a 
farmers' mutual insurance company here, and I had to 
pay nearly two hundred dollars that year as compared 
with about five dollars on an ordinary year. My rail 
fences were all burned and I spent ninety dollars for 
wire to replace 'em, and my woodland was damaged 
over two thousand dollars. Practically the only trees 
left of any value are the cedars. We're still getting them 
out for posts and railroad ties. The wood don't deteri- 
orate rapidly, and it will be good for a dozen years yet. 

"Fine forest covered all the country when I came here 
in 1878. I'd been living in New York state, but I 
wanted to own a place myself, and I didn't see much 
chance there with land a hundred and fifty to two 
hundred dollars an acre. An older brother had been up 
here to lumber, and he wrote that I could get some good 
farm land cheap. The company he worked for had 
bought the region supposing it was pine land, but come 
to look at it they found that through here it was all 
hardwood, which, at that time brought no price at all, 
and they wanted to get the land off their hands. I took 



A Michigan Forest Fire 149 

forty acres at two dollars an acre and paid twenty 
dollars down. That was all the money I had. 

"Twelve miles from here, on the shore of Lake Huron, 
was a village, and I came there by boat, and carried 
everything I needed the rest of the way on my back. 
A few men had settled here already during the previous 
year or two, and I was able to get potatoes of them, but 
I had to lug in what other food I needed and my cooking 
utensils and blankets and a featherbed. You'd think 
the bed would be too bulky, but I wrapped it up pretty 
tight. I've known more than one man to bring a stove 
in here on his back. We couldn't carry more'n enough 
food to last a week or so, and then we'd go and get a 
fresh supply of flour, salt pork, and a few groceries. 

"In some directions there was only trails, but from 
here to Alpena there was a sly road. That's a road 
chopped out and cleared up by the settlers just wide 
enough to go through with an old jumper, which is a kind 
of rough sled that has runners made of small trees with 
a natural crook in 'em. The jumper did very well to 
sneak around on a wild road, and if it struck a stone or a 
tree root, that didn't make no difference. The sly road 
was a great help to a man who had a horse. He could 
drag in his stuff and not have to carry it all on his back. 
The road was crooked and took the easiest way, always 
avoiding obstructions and bad places. If there was^a 
swamp it couldn't very well go around they put in 
corduroy. During most of the year the corduroy was 
fairly firm, but in the spring, or after a heavy rain, the 



150 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

logs were about the same as afloat. You could stick a 
pole down into the muck and not find any bottom 
hardly. It was ticklish business then crossing the 
corduroy with fifty pounds of flour on your back. The 
logs would begin to roll, and perhaps off" you'd go, but 
you were careful to watch out for your flour. Some- 
times you went in up to your waist. However, you'd 
clamber back on the corduroy and go on and think 
nothin' of it. 

*^I got here in the fall, and I soon had some logs ready 
to build a house. The neighbors helped me one day 
shaping the logs and putting up the housewalls. We 
had ropes and skids, and a man was stationed at each 
corner to chop the ends of the logs so they'd fit together. 
It was fifteen by twenty-two feet, and you can see the 
building yet in my barnyard where I use it for a hen- 
house. After the walls were up I cut out places for the 
doors and windows and put on the roof myself. I didn't 
need a' chimney. I just ran a stovepipe out through the 
roof. Probably it looks to you like a hard and lonesome 
task hewing out a home in the wilderness, but I never 
had any desire to go back where I come from. 

"During the first winter I slashed down some timber 
which I burned in the spring, and so I got in a chunk of 
turnips and a patch of potatoes. I earned something, 
too, by working at roadmaking. The commissioners 
were running a good highway through here, and the 
neighborhood would get together and we'd bid for sec- 
tions of it. A path a rod wide had to be stumped clear 



A Michigan Forest Fire 151 

and leveled off, and in wet places we put in corduroy, 
the sticks for which had to be at least six inches through 
and extend the full width of the cleared strip. 

"We raised splendid crops on our new land, and there 
were no weeds except fireweed; but the weeds have 
come in since, and now we have lots of work fighting 
them. Mosquitoes used to be troublesome. Oh, them 
mosquitoes! they used to be thick all over, but was 
more thicker in the swamps. We didn't have money 
enough to buy fly-netting to keep 'em out of our house. 
They were worst in May and June. After sundown 
they'd start biting and they didn't let you have any 
peace until nine or ten o'clock. They were bad again 
in the morning, so you couldn't sleep after four o'clock. 
Often we'd drive 'em out of the house by takin' an old 
kittle, putting a few chips in it, and makin' a good 
smoke. We make a smudge that way on our porch 
nowadays, or we couldn't stand it to sit out there on 
summer evenings. 

"Deer were pretty thick the first ten or twelve years, 
and I've seen dozens of 'em in a flock. We had only old 
muskets with percussion caps. If you didn't hit the 
deer you fired at, it would run a little way and stop, 
but too far away for your musket to reach it with a 
second shot. When the modern rifles became common 
they cleaned the deer out. We had a few bears. I heard 
the dogs barking one evening after it was gettin' dark, 
and I went out and see some creature that I thought 
was a calf. I decided to drive it back into the woods 



152 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

and find the place where it got through the fence into 
the clearing, but when I came near it the animal r'ared 
up and showed his teeth. I knew he was a bear then, 
and I called the dogs to sick him. While I was tryin' to 
lay hands on a stick for a weapon they drove him off, 
and he got away. 

"We enjoyed this new country, and were contented 
with the simple things we had to do with. In those 
days, if any of us wanted to go anywhere within a few 
miles we'd pick up our feet and go. Now we have to 
have horses and buggies and everything else; but at this 
house we're still old fashioned enough to walk back and 
forth to church a mile and a half away, summer and 
winter. As a whole, it seems to me as if the wants of our 
people had multiplied too fast, and that we work 
harder without getting any more fun than we used to 
have as pioneers. Yet if it hadn't been for this fire that 
has brought desolation and poverty, prosperity would 
be general throughout this region. " 

Note. — ^Most tourists would hardly care to linger about Thunder 
Bay or in the desolation of the region through which recent forest 
fires have raged; but there are many little lakes and streams scat- 
tered about the country that are wildly beautiful and furnish excel- 
lent fishing. Nor should one forget the attractions of Lake Huron, 
of which Thunder Bay is an arm. It is the most irregular of the 
Great Lakes and its varied charm is still further enhanced by the 
presence of no less than three thousand islands. 



VIII 

THE STRAITS OF MACKINAC 

NORTHERN Michigan is in many portions a 
veritable paradise for the seeker after healthful 
recreation. Its abounding streams, its hun- 
dreds of lakes, its clear bracing atmosphere, and its 
opportunities for hunting, fishing, canoeing, sailing, and 
motor-boating draw thither great numbers of people 
every summer. The resorts are many, but I think the 
most charming of them all is Mackinac Island, in the 
straits of the same name, where a narrow passage links 
Lake Michigan with Lake Huron. The island is about 
three and a half miles long and two broad — a rock-girt 
plateau sitting like an emerald gem amid the placid 
waters. Its name was formerly spelled Michilimackinac, 
which was an Indian term meaning Great Turtle. This 
refers to a fancied resemblance of the island to the back 
of a huge turtle, as seen from a distance. In the remote 
past it was a favorite sporting and camping-ground of 
various Indian tribes, and when the whites arrived it 
became the seat of justice, and base of supplies, and 
center of trade of a vast territory. 

Marquette wintered on the island in 1670. Writing 
from there, he mentions among other things that, *^This 
place is the most noted in these regions for the abun- 



154 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

dance of its fishes; for, according to the Indian saying, 
'This is the home of the fishes.' Elsewhere, although 
they exist in large numbers, is not properly their 
*home.' " 

He further mentions that, "The winds occasion no 
small embarrassment to the fishermen; for this is the 
central point between the great lakes which surround it, 
and which seem incessantly tossing ball at each other. 
No sooner has the wind ceased blowing from Lake 
Michigan than Lake Huron hurls back the gale it has 
received, and Lake Superior in its turn sends forth its 
blast from another quarter. Thus the game is played 
from one to the other; and as these lakes are of vast 
extent, the winds cannot be otherwise than boisterous, 
especially in the autumn." 

The Straits generally freeze over about the middle 
of January, and continue closed until the latter part of 
April. Formerly freight and passengers going north 
and south by railroad were transferred across the ice 
on sledges, the terminals being Mackinaw City and St. 
Ignace, with a ten-mile channel between. One year a 
railway track was laid on the ice, and the trains them- 
selves went across. Now two enormous train-carrying 
steamers, equipped with special ice-breaking apparatus, 
keep a path open all winter. Besides a screw at the 
stern to propel the vessel there is one at the bow which 
sucks the water from under the ice so that the boat 
climbing on the frozen mass breaks it down and crowds 
it aside. Two, three, and even four feet of blue ice have 





A village wayside 



The Straits of Mackinac 155 

been crushed in this way. Only once has the ice proved 
a match for the ice-crusher. In the struggle the broken 
cakes were piled so high about the vessel that it could 
not be seen from the shores. There it lay three days 
before the sister crusher, by breaking the surrounding 
ice, succeeded in setting the helpless steamer free. 
When the weather is very bitter the two boats are going 
back and forth all the time to keep the path from freez- 
ing too firmly. These ice crushers are an American 
invention, and have been copied in all northern waters, 
abroad as well as in our own land. 

The summer climate of the Straits, and especially 
that of Mackinac Island, is peculiarly equable. The 
island does not have to endure the extreme heat of the 
mainland, and so kindly is nature, and so long are the 
days, which, with the twilight, leave a night of scarce 
six hours, that both its vegetable and animal life are 
said to have unusual vigor. In support of this claim it 
is declared that a Mackinac hop-vine has been known 
to grow eighteen inches in twenty-four hours. 

I went to the island from Mackinaw City in a small 
steamer which makes frequent trips every day during 
the season. Occasionally, however, there is an inter- 
ruption. "We had a storm last Saturday," said one of 
the men on the boat, "and the waves dashed right over 
the Mackinaw wharf. No boats crossed the Straits 
that day. The water here is nine hundred feet deep, 
and when you get it stirred up it's doin' some business." 

I observed that the boat was equipped with two 



156 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

gambling machines for the entertainment of the passen- 
gers during the half or three-quarters of an hour voyage. 
One was called "The Dewey," and it bore a portrait of 
the admiral. That seemed as vicious a misuse of a 
respected name as the posters I saw in some of the towns 
advertising "Tolstoi Cigarettes." But I suppose a 
manufacturing concern or a steamship company that 
encourages gambling cannot be expected to have any 
compunctions about the desecration of men who have 
done noble things. 

We made for a little harbor on the south shore of the 
island. The narrow level along the crescent of the 
harbor was crowded with buildings, and behind rose 
steep bluffs crowned with a stout-walled old fort that 
has three blockhouses to add still further to Its stout- 
ness. The village with Its narrow crooked streets, its 
little churches and occasional quaint structures of 
long ago, and that ancient fort on the cliff combine to 
make a scene that Is delightfully picturesque. You are 
reminded of the beautiful seaside hamlets of Europe. 

The fort was begun by the English in 1780. When 
completed three years later, its commanding position, 
its blockhouses, and its ponderous walls, surmounted 
by a stockade of cedar posts, made it a most formidable 
defence In the warfare of that day. The stockade was 
ten feet high and pierced by two sets of loopholes for 
musketry, and the blockhouses were armed with small 
iron cannon. For nearly fourscore years the fort re- 
tained much of its original appearance. Then a part of 



The Straits of Mackinac 157 

the stockade fell, and the rest was removed. Other- 
wise, the fort today is still in most essentials what it 
was in the beginning, and its sturdy walls bid fair to 
last for centuries. 

The success of the American colonies in their war for 
independence gave the United States peaceful posses- 
sion of the fort not long after it was finished, but early 
in the second war with the mother country one hundred 
and thirty-five English soldiers and about a thousand 
Indians surprised and captured it without bloodshed. 
Two years later its recapture was attempted, and a 
battle was fought on the northern part of the island. 
The Americans were defeated with considerable loss in 
killed and wounded, and they withdrew. At the close 
of the war, however, it was once more transferred to the 
United States. It no longer has much military value, 
but it is historically significant to a rare degree and is 
redolent of a martial past. 

All around the island steep limestone cliffs front the 
water, and the rugged shores might be forbidding were 
they not fringed with cedars and pines that grow along 
the beach and cling to the steeps. Most of the upland 
is covered with hardwood. The island is plentifully 
crisscrossed with roads, and a beautiful drive encircles 
it at the foot of the cliffs. When I began to get ac- 
quainted with its various features I concluded that the 
atmosphere was conducive to sentiment. Witness, for 
instance, such names as "Cupid's Pathway," "Lover's 
Leap," "Wishing Spring," and "Friendship's Altar." 



158 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Caves, grottoes, and fantastic rock formations abound. 
The most famous of these is "Arch Rock," a slender, 
graceful natural bridge of mammoth proportions. It 
is a part of the lofty cliffs on the east side, a hundred and 
fifty feet above the water. Among the other limestone 
grotesqueries are "Chimney Rock," "The Devil's 
Kitchen," and "The Sugar Loaf." The last is a honey- 
combed pinnacle that rises to a height of ninety feet, 
amid the woods, not far from Arch Rock. 

There is a legend which declares that Mackinac Island 
was specially created by one of the Indian manitous. 
This god was looking around the region for a dwelling- 
place, but could find none suitable. So he raised Mack- 
inac Island from the deeps of the channel, and sent his 
messengers all over the world to inform the spirits of the 
earth, air, and water that here was a place prepared for 
them where they could come and rest, leaving all care 
behind. To enable visitors to easily ascend to the 
heights of the island the manitou made the arched 
gateway. The Great Spirit's wigwam was built on the 
plateau near by, but during the years that have elapsed 
since that dim period the wigwam has turned to stone, 
and is now the rough yet symmetrical cone known as 
the "Sugar Loaf." 

A much higher pinnacle is "Lover's Leap," which 
stands on the shore and soars up one hundred and forty- 
five feet. From its top an Indian maiden is said to have 
watched day after day for the return of her lover from a 
war expedition. At last, word came that he had been 




One of the fort gateways 



i6o Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

solitary Indian hunter will, without apparent reason, 
apprehend some great evil and be seized with an un- 
earthly terror that makes him shiver from head to foot, 
and the hairs of his head stand up like porcupine quills. 
Then he knows that those wandering Ottawa spirits are 
near. He is benumbed with fright, and the sensation is 
awful; yet the spirits have never done anyone serious 
harm. An Indian, when he recovers from the spell, 
generally concludes that the visitation means that the 
spirits want something, and he leaves in a convenient 
spot a present of tobacco, powder, or other article 
which he thinks they may fancy. If they appear to a 
person and talk to him, that person is ever afterward 
gifted with power to foresee the future and becomes a 
prophet to his people. 

One object of historical interest at Mackinac is a 
hotel that is in part the same structure that was used by 
John Jacob Astor in conducting his fur business. Astor 
migrated to America from Germany in 1784, and at 
first worked in a New York bakery. But presently he 
began in a small way to sell furs in the country towns 
about the city. He was industrious, prudent, and 
saving; and when the American Fur Company was 
chartered in 1809 Mr. Astor became the president and 
principal shareholder. Its operations at Mackinac 
covered a period from 181 5 to 1842, and during this 
time the little island in the straits was the chief center 
of the fur company's trade and activity. Three million 
dollars' worth of merchandise was annually exchanged 



The Straits of Mackinac i6i 

for furs in the Indian country. But gradually those 
pathfinders of the wilderness, the fur-traders, were 
driven out by the lumbermen, who roughly prepared 
the region for their successors, the pioneer farmers, and 
by 1835 the fur business was seriously on the wane. 
After the winding up of the affairs of the American 
Fur Company, individual merchants at Mackinac con- 
tinued the fur trade, but it constantly declined until it 
entirely disappeared from the island. 

Meanwhile the fishing business had become increas- 
ingly important. Whitefish and trout in small quan- 
tities began to be sent to the Buffalo market about 1824. 
More and more were shipped as the years passed, and 
all the fishing grounds for a hundred and fifty miles 
around brought their catch to Mackinac to be sorted, 
salted and packed. 

Mackinac's record as a pleasure resort dates back to 
1842, when a few Southern families began to summer on 
the island. They brought their slaves with them and 
often came as early as June and stayed until November. 
Year after year, the vacation tourists became more 
numerous, and now the caring for them is the chief 
business of the town. The inhabitants number about 
eight hundred, and I was told that all but three of the 
families are intermarried. A peculiar result of this 
relationship is that while they quarrel freely among 
themselves, yet if any individual has a disagreement 
with an outsider they are all united against the latter, 
no matter what the merits of the case may be. 



1 62 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

The most unsatisfactory phase of the tourist business 
is the shortness of the season. "Our hotels don't com- 
mence to really fill up till August," said an elderly 
citizen with whom I chatted as he was loitering on one 
of the wharves, "and the rush don't last much more 
than a month. If we get a cold east wind in early Sep- 
tember our visitors think they might as well go home, 
though they ought to know the weather'll take a turn 
and give 'em a scorching where they live. 

"One of our troubles is that we get such poor help. 
We have to apply to the employment agencies in the 
big cities, and they send summer resorts like this a lot of 
rowdies and nigger wenches who can't get work any- 
where else. The help are mean. You can't depend on 
'em. While boarders are few they seem satisfied, but 
when your house fills up, and you've got something for 
'em to do, they're ready to leave you. You're in a fix 
then, for you can't go right out here and replace 'em. 
What they're here for is a good time. You take the men 
servants at the hotels and the drivers of the seventy or 
eighty rigs that are on the street in summer, they get 
good wages, but they don't save nothing. They want 
to carouse all night, and the only business that is the 
better for their being here is that of the saloon-keepers. 
The person who carries on in such a way may pass with 
his comrades for *a darn good feller,' but that's only 
a nickname for a blame fool. 

"People who've travelled this country all over say 
they've never seen anything prettier than this island. 



The Straits of Mackinac 163 

Besides, the air is pure always. You don't have to 
swallow any coal smoke. The land is dry and high, and 
there are no swamps, marshes, or frog-ponds. We have 
a few small green frogs on the island, but I hain't heard 
one sing this summer. Over on the mainland there are 
places where they begin to sing at four in the afternoon 
and keep at it till midnight. I know just one spot back 
by a little brook where a few mosquitoes breed, but 
they're very scarce here. It gets hot sometimes, yet the 
island is surrounded with such a body of water that we 
get cool air if there's any breeze stirring, and our nights 
are always comfortable. 

"I've been here sixty years. My folks came from 
Ireland when I was seven years old. They crossed the 
ocean to Canada and went on through the Great Lakes 
as far as Chicago. That was in the fall of 1848. Chi- 
cago wasn't much of a place then. No, it was a regular 
mudhole. The river there was narrow and shallow, and 
the vessels that put into it couldn't turn around, but 
had to back out down to the lake. They were mostly 
sailing-vessels, but there were a few small sidewheel 
steamers. On the business streets were quite a number 
of good brick buildings. The rest were small wooden 
structures, some of logs. One man had a little log cabin 
right on the bank of the river near its mouth. When the 
authorities wanted to improve the harbor he wouldn't 
sell, and they dredged right around him and left his 
cabin on an island. It was a low, marshy region, and 
there was a great deal of ague and malaria. The streets 



164 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

were so muddy it was as much as the farmers could do 
to get through 'em with their wagons; and a half mile 
out from the city center took you onto prairie. 

"We came here the next year on account of the 
cholera, which had got into Chicago. Nearly every 
boat that passed through the Straits had on it some 
dead with the disease, especially emigrant boats from 
the eastern end of the lakes. The islanders were too 
afraid of the cholera to let 'em make any burials here, 
but the bodies had to be buried somewhere. So the 
sailors would take 'em ashore in a boat and bury 'em 
on the lonely beaches. Round Island, just south of us, 
was uninhabited, and a good many were buried there. 

"The buildings here were mostly of logs. We had no 
sawmill until twenty-five years later, but a good deal 
of lumber was whip-sawed. Of the thousand or more 
inhabitants the biggest part was Indians and half- 
breeds. There were only ten or twelve white families. 
Nothing much was grown here except on one farm in the 
north part of the island. That farm is still cultivated. 
The early owners raised a good deal of hay, but the 
later farmers haven't. It's too much like work — that's 
just the way it goes. 

"Four or five small docks reached out into the water 
from the settlement, and there wasn't another dock 
between Buffalo and Chicago. The vessels all used to 
stop to buy supplies, and some would leave goods and 
take on furs and fish. The steamers loaded up with 
wood. Their engines didn't burn coal then, and they 



The Straits of Mackinac 165 

couldn't have carried enough wood to make one of their 
long trips without so crowding the decks that there 
wouldn't have been the necessary room for passengers 
and cargo. They had to stop along to take on a fresh 
supply, and often were obliged to pay an exorbitant 
price. I've seen the decks so piled up with wood that 
even the windows of the staterooms were darkened. 
We cut considerable wood for the steamers right on the 
island, but most of it was brought from the other islands 
and the mainland. Some eight or ten scows carrying 
from a hundred to a hundred and fifty cords to a load 
were hauling it every day. They were flat-boats with 
sails, and they didn't draw over four feet of water, so 
they could go right in on the bank to load. The men 
went where they pleased on government land to cut the 
wood, and it didn't cost them anything. 

"Indians were numerous in the region, and they had 
little villages all along the lake shores. Usually they 
did their hunting with flintlock guns bought from the 
traders, but a good many continued to use just such 
bows and arrows as their ancestors carried. The bows 
were six or seven feet long, and the arrows were stone- 
pointed. They raised a good deal of corn, they shot 
and trapped game, and they caught fish. They could 
ketch all the fish they wanted anywhere they went to, 
either by setting a net over night in the lake, or by 
going up the rivers and spearing 'em. The squaws did 
all the home work, and it was they who went out in the 



1 66 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

woods and got a bundle of sticks, when there was need, 
and built a little fire to cook in the wigwam. 

"The Indians came here from all around to trade. 
They brought furs — mostly mink, fox, and otter, with 
some bear and lynx skins — and they brought fish. 
Another thing they brought to sell was deerskin mocca- 
sins they'd made. The Indians were very expert in 
tanning deerhide. They wore moccasins all through 
the year and never would buy shoes or boots. Many 
of the whites wore moccasins in winter, and I've wore 
'em myself. I'd wrap up my feet in blanket nips, pull 
on moccasins, and nothing could be better to walk in 
dry snow, or to wear if I was going somewhere in a 
sleigh. They were about the only thing that snowshoes 
would go well with, for cowhide footwear was too stifi^. 

"The government made a money payment here to 
the Indians each year in the fall, and sometimes we'd 
have as high as three or four thousand of 'em 
camped by the shore. The stores were well back from 
the water, and there was a strip of gravelly beach a mile 
long, yes, every bit of that, where they could set up 
their wigwams two or three deep. It wasn't just the 
men that came — it was whole families, cats, dogs, and 
all; and the braves were in their war paint and feathers 
— oh, they were savage-lookin' fellers! But they were 
peaceable. One white man could scare a dozen of 'em. 
In fact, the white men were more bother to the Indians 
than the Indians were to the white men. 

"They brought their camp fixings right in the canoe — 




Starting for the fishing grounds 



The Straits of Mackinac 167 

you bet they did! — and they'd have the wigwam up in 
twenty minutes. The squaws attended to that while 
the men unloaded the boat. The framework of a wig- 
wam was of poles set up cone-fashion, and the covering 
was birch-bark. Pieces of bark were stripped from the 
trees, and while still green were stitched together with 
basswood cords to make larger pieces. The cords were 
made of the Inside bark, which can be separated into 
long tough strands. All the birch bark needed for a 
cabin could be rolled up tight and tied, and It wouldn't 
take up any more room than a barrel. 

"Their canoes were of birch-bark, too, and they were 
staunch and water-tight. They melted gum from pine 
trees to put on the seams and any flaws, and it was just 
as tough as wax. The inside of the canoe was lined with 
cedar strips, very thin and pliable. It was wood so 
straight-grained it would split In strips like a ribbon 
ten feet long. If you chose. There are not many such 
cedars left, and there were not many in those times, but 
the Indians found them. The owner of a canoe was 
very careful not to drag it on a stony shore. He'd pick 
it up and carry it, and when not In use he'd turn It 
bottom up and shield it from the sun with a covering of 
cedar bark. The material wouldn't rot or wear out very 
easy, and if properly cared for a canoe might be good 
for twenty years. The canoes were very buoyant and 
I've seen 'em big enough to carry a family of eight or 
ten with all their household goods. 

"Sometimes the Indians would be here for a week 



1 68 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

waiting for their pay, and when it was distributed they'd 
get about fourteen dollars a head, big and little. Most 
of it was already due the merchants who'd sold 'em 
goods. The Indians were very honest in those times, 
but they're not now. They're getting a little too much 
white in 'em. Then, they'd come right in and pay when 
the government settled with 'em, and if there were any 
who didn't do so the merchant would send out a 
clerk to take the money away from 'em. They never 
went away with any. They'd buy provisions and 
pork, and they'd buy blankets. All of 'em wore those 
white blankets, and you couldn't hardly tell a man 
from a woman. The blankets were thick and good. 
When you got a blanket then, you got one. Indians 
were ready customers for beads and imitation silver 
breast-pieces all strung with little bells, and they'd buy 
lots of ear-rings and finger rings. The rings were mostly 
brass, but they'd buy 'em, and any other trinkets, and 
all at a big profit to the dealers. 

"The stores didn't have to pay a license to sell liquor, 
and the price was three cents a glass. An Indian would 
buy a gallon to take home with him. Perhaps, in order 
to have his good time with the least delay, and not to be 
troubled by the whites while he was having it, he packed 
his goods in his canoe and went around to the back of 
the island. There he'd put up his wigwam and stay as 
long as the whiskey lasted. 

"More or less Indians were coming and going at all 
seasons. In winter they crossed from the mainland with 



The Straits of Mackinac 169 

dog sleighs on the ice. The dogs were black and brindle 
and white and every other color, but they all had short 
hair. They were hitched tandem, from two to four to a 
sleigh. The sleigh was like a toboggan, about eight feet 
long and fourteen inches wide, and those flat concerns 
would go right on top of the snow. So would the In- 
dians with their snowshoes, but the dogs sunk in some. 
A strip of canvas was tacked along each side of the 
sledge and folded over the load, and the canvas was 
made fast by a crisscrossing of cords. Even if the sleigh 
capsized 'twouldn't make any difference, and the wrap- 
pings were so secure a man could pick it up like a log if 
he wanted to and carry it on his shoulder. One Indian 
always walked ahead, and there'd usually be one or two 
following behind. 

"Quite a number of whites had squaw wives. You 
might be surprised that a white man of any sense would 
marry a squaw, but white women were scarce, and even 
the old merchants who owned a good deal of the town 
married -squaws. The worst thing about the arrange- 
ment was that the children of such couples never 
amounted to much. They grew up careless, too much 
after the Indian way, and were not as good as either of 
their parents. They weren't trustworthy, and they 
weren't thrifty. After the father died they just lived 
high while the property lasted, and then had to move to 
humbler quarters. Take it all through, girls as well as 
boys, they were a worthless set. 

"But a squaw made the best kind of a wife for a 



170 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

fisherman. He could put her in a boat and take her ofF 
and camp, and she was at home there. She understood 
tending tp nets and was a great help. As a rule the 
squaw wives were neat, and they were very good in 
cookin' pork, beans, corn, and fish, but they never 
could make good bread. Their bread was mostly 
always sad — they used saleratus, and the bread wasn't 
light. It was in the form of a cake eight or ten inches in 
diameter that filled the pan, and it was baked right 
before the fire with coals drawn out under it. When it 
was nearly baked they turned it over. It was heavy, 
but I've noticed if a feller was real hungry it tasted all 
right. Wunst, when three of us were out in a sailboat, 
a gale of wind drove us ashore, and we made a landing 
at an Indian village. One of the Indians had a log 
shanty, but he was livin' in a wigwam in the yard. 
A good many Indians did that way — they'd have a 
little log house which they'd keep nicely done up during 
the summer while they occupied a wigwam. This 
Indian give us the use of his cabin for the night and 
furnished us with food. They were very good that way. 
They were so hospitable they'd give you anything they 
had." 

My companion now turned his steps homeward 
while I lingered on the wharf watching a squad of big, 
handsome fish that were swimming leisurely about deep 
down in the clear water. But after a time I, too, went 
up to the village. On its farther borders, half way up 
the slope toward the old fort, was an ancient weather- 



The Straits of Mackinac 171 

beaten house, high in front, but slanting down at the 
back to a low leanto. The older portion was of logs, 
though these were clapboarded from sight, and this part 
dated back almost to the time when the fort itself was 
built. Behind the house was a patch of cultivated land 
where its thrifty German occupants raised great quan- 
tities of produce for the hotels. I got acquamted with 
the family and spent an evening in one of the rude 
low-ceiled rooms. The head of the household was both 
a fisherman and a farmer, but his farming was chiefly 
done on the large adjacent island of Bois Blanc, a name 
that is locally condensed to Bobloe. 

I mentioned that the house dog had threatened to 
nip me when I came in at the gate, and my host said: 
"I'll tell you the easiest way to scare a dog that don t 
behave himself. Take your cap in your mouth and 
crouch down in front of him. He don't know what to 
make of that, and he'll give a yell out of him, put his 
tail between his legs, and go. ^^ Sixty miles an hour is 
nothing, and he'll never stop." 

My host had at one time been a deputy game warden 
and he related some of his experiences. "The law itself 
is not always reasonable, " said he. " It used to be that 
you couldn't ^sell, barter, or give away,' fish under a 
certain size. Yet you will ketch under sized fish in spite 
of the dickens, no matter if the mesh of your net is 
large enough to let 'em through. You were hable to a 
fine if you threw 'em back in the water, and you were 
liable to a fine if you brought them ashore. What could 



172 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

you do — send 'em away in a balloon? But a new law 
allows you to have ten per cent of under sized fish in 
your possession. 

''One time there was a complaint that the fish were 
being speared in a certain lake over on the mainland. 
The lawbreakers weren't just gettin' a mess to eat, but 
they were doin' the spearin' for the fun of it, and would 
leave the fish on the^shore. I went to the lake with the 
head warden one evening to put a stop to such reck- 
lessness. We drove there in a buggy through the woods, 
six miles. Then we hitched our horse, got a boat, and 
lay in wait near the mouth of a stream. By and by we 
see a jack-light and heard the sound of oars, and pretty 
soon we made out there were three men in the boat. 
We run in between 'em and the shore. They saw us and 
put out the light and started for the middle of the lake 
with us after 'em. I was rowing. We hadn't gone far 
when we heard a gunshot, and a bullet whistled past 
near my head. Then I gave 'em a shot from my pistol. 
If I'd had a rifle I'd have got one of 'em, for I'd have 
shot to kill — my gosh, yes! I was mad, and I rowed 
after 'em as fast as I could go. I'd have followed 'em 
to hell and back before I'd have let 'em escape. All the 
time I was gaining, but I rowed four miles before they 
stopped. We came along side. 'Who are you.^' we 
said, gripping their boat. 

Not a word. 'Been fishing?' 

Not a word any more'n if they'd been deef and 
dumb. They'd thrown their spear and jack-light over- 



<< 



The Straits of Mackinac 173 

board, but I flashed our light into the bottom of their 
boat, and there lay a bass with the marks of five prongs 
on it. I reached over and picked it up. 'All right,' I 
says, * that's enough. You blasted fools, if you'd thrown 
that bass into the water we wouldn't have had any 
proof — we couldn't have done nothing.' 

"They wouldn't speak, they wouldn't move, and I 
had to tow their boat back. We'd got almost to shore 
before they opened their mouths and began to be kind o' 
decent. We could have arrested 'em and taken 'em 
to town; but how.? We had only a buggy. That 
wouldn't carry all of us, and six miles was a long walk. 
So we said, 'We'll let you go if you'll appear at court 
Monday morning.' 

" 'We'll be there, ' they said, and we parted company. 

"The game warden and I took along the fish and kept 
it on ice so we could produce it as evidence. Monday I 
went to town, and in the first saloon I come to I see those 
three fellows. They called me in and treated me and 
asked what they'd better do. Well, the game warden, 
he didn't want any row, he didn't like to make any 
enemies. An election was coming and he needed votes, 
and I said, 'Now, boys, the thing for you to do is to 
plead guilty, and we'll let you oif easy. ' 

"We went to the court, and the game warden and I 
told how we'd caught 'em with that speared fish in their 
boat. 'Gentlemen,' says the judge, turning to the 
accused men, 'how is that.?' 

" 'Guilty,' they says, and he fined 'em eight dollars 
and sixty-five cents apiece. 



174 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"They paid, and the whole bunch, judge and all, 
went back to the saloon as sociable as you please. We 
could have soaked 'em for shooting, but that's a part of 
the game. You have to stand for that. If you are an 
officer and try to enforce the law, there are times when 
you carry your life in your hand. If anybody in this 
wild region has got it in for you he only needs to stand 
way back in the bush with his gun when you're passing 
in some lonely place — and if a bullet comes — well, 
whose was it? Why, good Lord, man! those bullets 
never tell — they're all alike. So there's many a game 
warden who never leaves town, but just hangs around. 
They're born cowards. 

"Speaking of fishing, did you ever go ketching shiners 
on a moonlight night in the spring when they're running 
up the brooks to the ponds to spawn .f^ They start 
about sundown, and go up little brooks no more than 
two feet wide. There are regular droves, and they ruffle 
the water in their hurry and leap out and fall back. It's 
a pretty sight. You take a bag, fit a hoop into it to 
keep it open, and set it near the mouth of a brook. Then 
you go up a short distance and return, hitting the water 
with a switch. If it's dark you carry a lantern. Maybe 
you'll get half a bushel of the shiners at one drive. 
They keep running up until about midnight, and then 
there's just as many running the other way; but those 
going down have spawned and are soft-fleshed. We 
put 'em up in mustard or olive oil to eat later. 

"About ten days after those little fellers have left the 



The Straits of Mackinac I75 

ponds the suckers start to run. They go in the night, 
the same as the shiners, and they fill the brook full and 
pile up on each other. You can hear 'em splash and 
skirmish. Some of 'em weigh as high as four pounds. 
We throw 'em out with pitchforks or with our hands. 
They are very nice when they come out of cold water, 
but are the boniest fish in the lakes. They used to be 
called 'Family whitefish,' after they got to Chicago. 
However, since the new food law has been put in force 
that fake business has been dropped. 

"In winter we fish quite a little through the ice. 
That's dangerous sometimes. Last March, while a 
couple of Mackinac half-breeds were out on the ice 
at the fishing grounds about two miles from the village, 
a great big floe broke off with them on it. There was a 
fierce snowstorm at the time, and they didn't notice 
that they were afloat till their lines began to drag, and 
then the crack was too wide to jump. That was about 
nine o'clock in the morning. The wind carried 'em ten 
miles east to where they got into a current that brought 
'em back eight miles toward Bobloe Island. Each had 
a sledge drawn by two dogs, and they made the dogs 
run and they ran themselves to keep from freezing. 
They must have gone twenty-five or thirty miles run- 
ning that day. The situation was getting more alarm- 
ing all the time because the floe was breaking up. 

"I was on Bobloe Island at my farm, and I saw the 
men on the ice cake, but it would be only for a few 



176 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

moments at a time. Then the storm would thicken and 
hide then. A rowboat couldn't go to them. The waves 
and the pieces of ice would have smashed it, and I could 
only watch. The snow froze stiff on my mustache as 
soon as I stepped out, and I couldn't keep my eyes open. 
I thought the two men were sure gone. The ice cake 
drifted on till it touched the shore, and then the waves 
began to wash across it. One of the men had kneeled 
down to pray, but the other told him to cut that out 
till they got to land. So they made a running jump to 
the shore, and the dogs followed with the sleighs. 
An instant later the ice cake drifted away into the 
storm. They hadn't lost anything. They even had 
some fish in the sleighs; but the dogs were so played out 
they dropped right down; and I tell you the men done 
some eating when they got to my house, and don't you 
forget it. 

"There's others besides fishermen have adventures 
on the ice. The people on Mackinac get a good deal of 
wood from Round Island in the winter. Late one after- 
noon a man started from there with his load. A storm 
had begun, and it soon got so dark he couldn't see his 
hand before his eyes. If he'd let his horse go he'd been 
all right, but he thought it hadn't taken the proper 
direction, and he pulled it out of the track. Hour after 
hour he kept on without getting anywhere, and he 
gradually threw off wood from his sled to lighten up till 
there was none left. He was travelling all night and in 
the morning found he'd been circling Round Island, 



The Straits of Mackinac 177 

following his own tracks. His feet, hands and kneecaps 
were frozen. Oh ! you want to get a move on if you're 
out on the ice and see a storm threatening. 

"In the spring when the ice begins to soften there's 
danger of breaking through, and the woodteams each 
carry a rope with a slipnoose at one end so if the horse 
gets in they can put the rope around his neck and pull 
him out. We get in ourselves once in a while, too. I 
fell through up to my neck once, but I soon got out. 
Then I pulled off the big rubber boots I had on and 
emptied out the water, all except a little, and started 
on a dog trot for home. My stockings would have 
frozen stiff if I hadn't left any water in the boots to keep 
working around. When I reached home and got into 
dry clothes I was fine as a chipmunk. 

"But such things are nothing — they happen every 
winter. We all take chances, and the people here will 
do whatever they can to help a person in danger, even to 
risking their own lives. We feel more responsibility for 
each other, I suppose, because we are so isolated. It's 
not just danger that will stir us to help, but we'll all 
club together to make comfortable anybody who's 
suffering from poverty. Oh, Mackinac isn't simply a 
good place for outsiders to spend the summer — it's a 
good place to live all the year." 

Note. — Of all the Great Lakes resorts I think the Straits of 
Mackinac have the finest combination of scenic, historic and 
climatic attraction. Mackinac Island, with its tiny harbor, quaint 
village and old fort, and its castellated rocks that front the water, is 



178 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

a gem. Besides the stirring story of Its past there Is a great variety 
of legendary lore that appeals to the Imagination and increases the 
sojourner's enjoyment. Fishing and sailing can be had here at their 
best. For a little while In midsummer the island is crowded, and 
those who desire to visit It with most comfort would do well to 
select some other month than August. Accommodations vary from 
the sumptuous and expensive in the fine hotels to the simplicity and 
moderate charges of the boarding-houses. 

All visitors will be Interested to recall that on the mainland, at 
Mackinaw City, occurred one of the most dismal of Indian massa- 
cres. This is fascinatingly described in Parkman's "The Conspiracy 
of Pontiac." 

It Is also of Interest to know that a representation of the story of 
Hiawatha, which is a narrative of the Ojibways, is given each year 
by these Indians near Petosky on the shore of Lake Michigan about 
forty miles south of the Straits of Mackinac. Here on a wooded 
point are the tepees of an Indian village, and on the margin of a 
landlocked bay with the forest for a background the scenes of the 
play are enacted on nature's own stage. The spot is in the very 
heart of the Ojibway country, and from a remote past these Indians 
have hunted and fished and fought in this vicinity, and they are 
proud of their early legends which the poet has woven Into verse. 
It Is said that they render the play with great skill and charm. The 
play is given on every pleasant day through the month of August. 

Some of the most attractive of Lake Michigan's resorts are in this 
vicinity on Grand Traverse Bay and Little Traverse Bay. 

Out In the lake to the north Is Beaver Island which is worth visit- 
ing because of its fame as the one-time stronghold of King Strang 
and his Mormons. It Is an island where piracy once flourished with 
the result that more than one vessel met a mysterious and tragic 
end at the hands of buccaneers as bloodthirsty as any that ever 
roamed the South Seas. As one of the Mackinac residents expressed 
it, "They had all sorts of rows and rumpuses there, fighting and 
shooting, and were responsible for more deaths than a war would 
take, you might say." 




Entering the ^'' Soo^^ Canal 



IX 



ROUNDABOUT THE "soo" 



IN the narrow river that connects Lakes Superior and 
Huron is a ledge of rocks half a mile long, over 
which the waters run in swift violence forming the 
Rapids of St. Mary, or, to put it in French, the Sault 
Sainte Marie. The adjacent banks were a gathering- 
place for the Indians from time immemorial. Here they 
fished in the rapids and portaged their canoes along the 
shores. The importance of the spot increased when the 
white men came, for there was an immediate increase of 
traffic. As time went on, more and more furs had to be 
portaged down, and more and more trappers' and 
traders' supplies went up from below. But the boats 
that were used, whether by Indians or pioneer whites, 
were comparatively small and light. Indeed, for more 
than two centuries after the whites began to explore the 
Great Lakes, most of the navigation was in frail birch- 
bark canoes, or flat-bottomed, sharp-pointed row- 
boats called bateaux. Only in the most favorable 
weather were sails used on these craft, and they seldom 
ventured far from the shores of the stormy, wind-swept 
waters. Larger vessels were rare even down to the 
beginning of the nineteenth century, at which time the 



i8o Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

entire fleet of Huron, Erie, and Michigan consisted of 
three schooners and six sloops. 

The steamboat made its appearance on the lakes 
in 1818, when a side-wheeler called the Walk-in-the- 
Water was launched at Buffalo. She had unboxed 
wheels, and six lengths of stovepipe put together served 
for a smoke-stack. For several years she plied back and 
forth between Buffalo and Detroit. The trip often took 
thirteen days, and the fare was eighteen dollars. In 
1832 the first steamboat reached Chicago, and in the 
years that followed the number of steamboats increased 
rapidly. They could move freely through all the lakes 
above Niagara except Superior, and presently, in order to 
give access to the rich regions bordering this lake, the 
"Soo" Canal was constructed. 

It was at first agreed that a lock two hundred and 
fifty feet long would provide amply for any vessels that 
would ever navigate those waters, for the longest boat 
on the lakes then measured only one hundred and sixty- 
seven feet. But through the urgency of Mr. Harvey, 
who had charge of the work, another hundred feet was 
added to the lock length. The undertaking was a 
tremendous one for those days, without railroad con- 
nection with the rest of the world and with a very slow 
steamboat service. It took six weeks to get a reply to a 
letter mailed to New York, where gangs of laborers had 
to be hired among the immigrants. At one time an 
epidemic of cholera killed ten per cent, of the men, but 
work went on without interruption. At another time 



Roundabout the " Soo " 1 8 1 

two thousand laborers struck, and Harvey hid all the 
provisions in the woods until the strikers returned, 
which they did in twenty-four hours. The canal was 
completed in 1855. 

Fifteen years later the lock was enlarged, and in 1896 
an eight hundred foot lock was built, the biggest and 
costliest lock in the world. Even this is now too small, 
and a still larger one is nearing completion. During the 
season an average of a boat every twelve minutes day 
and night passes through the locks, and the total annual 
tonnage is about ten times that of the Suez Canal. 

The changes in the locks correspond with the changes 
in the size and type of the lake vessels. In recent years 
the most omnipresent of these vessels are the steel 
steamboats built solely to carry as much cargo as is 
consistent with safety. Five or six hundred feet is a 
common length. At the stern is the machinery with a 
smoke-stack and a row of cabins visible above the deck. 
At the front end, the length of a city block distant, is the 
deck-house, containing officers' quarters, with the 
wheelhouse and bridge. The whole shell is built with 
special regard to strength, and the improvements in 
the vessels have greatly lessened the number of wrecks. 
Formerly the frequency of marine tragedies on the 
inland seas was appalling, and if all the ships lost on 
them were evenly distributed on the thousand mile 
route between Buffalo and Duluth there would be a 
sunken hulk every half mile. Now, however, such is 
the comparative rarity of wrecks that, as far as pas- 



i82 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

senger traffic is concerned, no other travel thorough- 
fares can rival these lakes for safety. In 1907, for 
instance, of the sixteen million persons who journeyed 
on the lake passenger ships only three were lost. The 
risk on our railroads is vastly more serious, and even 
the percentage of ocean casualties is twelve times as 
great. 

But wrecks of freighters are still common, and prob- 
ably no similar area of ocean bottom could show more 
sunken ships or more valuable cargoes than the depths 
of the Great Lakes. The closing days of the season's 
navigation are the most perilous. This is a time justly 
dreaded for its storms and cold, its heavy fogs, or bliz- 
zards of snow. Yet an additional trip means the earn- 
ing of exceptionally high freight rates, and a profit of 
thousands of dollars. So many a boat assumes the risk. 
The start is perhaps made under a clear sky, with gentle 
breezes and mild temperature, but in a few hours the 
air may turn bitterly cold, a fierce gale blow and the 
vessel be buffeted by a blinding snowstorm and by 
waves whose spray coats the ship with ice. The lights 
along the shores are hidden from view, and the safety 
of the vessel depends on the accuracy of the captain's 
calculations and his good seamanship. If he misjudges, 
instead of being on her proper course miles from the 
coast, the ship may be steadily driving toward her 
doom. 

Fully one sixth of the vessels that meet disaster are 
total wrecks, and sometimes not a soul has survived of 



Roundabout the " Soo" 183 

those that were on board. These land-locked waters 
even have their "mysterious disappearances." Ships 
sailing from one port to another, though perhaps their 
natural course would at no time be more than thirty 
miles from shore, have never been heard from again. 
One of the more recent of such mysteries is that of the 
Bannockhurn. She was a powerful freighter with a 
crew of twenty-two men. One morning she left Duluth 
and was sighted the next evening. That was the last 
ever seen of her. Eighteen months later, in the drift- 
wood at the edge of the Michigan wilderness an oar was 
found on which the letters of the name Bannockhurn 
were rudely scraped into the wood. This is the sole 
relic of the missing freighter; but some superstitious 
sailors affirm that she still exists and that on stormy 
autumn nights they have seen her — a ghostly appari- 
tion shrouded in ice, scudding through the gloom. 

My first visit to the "Soo" was in October, and on 
the morning after my arrival I looked forth from my 
hotel which fronted on the canal, off across the white 
turmoil of the Rapids to the wooded Canadian hills 
blushing with autumn color. The weather had hitherto 
been mild, but winter seemed to have arrived during 
the night, and a wild blast swept down the river, even 
dashing the waters of the canal into big white-capped 
waves. When I stepped outside for a moment the wind 
snatched my breath away and nearly took me off my 
feet. No doubt, on the open lakes, the rude weather 
had caused a good many vessels to seek shelter, but 



184 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

every now and then one would appear at the locks, pass 
through and go on. 

Among the loiterers in the hotel office was a pon- 
derous German with so pronounced a double chin that 
his face was twice as long as nature intended it to be. 
He was a deep-voiced man, with a profundity of manner 
that indicated he had pondered much and settled defi- 
nitely as to the right and wrong of most questions. He 
was not a resident at the "Soo," but had been a fre- 
quent visitor there during the last twenty-five years. 
"I remember the first time I came," said he. *'It was 
winter. I got up in the morning, and somebody said it 
was nineteen below zero. I didn't believe it, but, by 
cracky! it was. There was no wind, and the cold is 
nothing here if the wind don't blow. You can walk 
around without your overcoat no matter how the ther- 
mometer stands. That first time it was all right; but 
other times it's snowed and it's blowed. The wind goes 
right through you, and I've seen six and a half feet of 
snow already on the street here. Yes, you can have this 
country — I don't want it. But it's nice enough in 
summer, and if you drive out of the town you can see 
some prosperous farms — and you can see some that are 
not prosperous. The Germans are good farmers. 
So are the Dutch and the Scotch; but the rest — no. 
There's the Yankees, for instance. They talk and brag 
about what they can do on the farm, but I never saw 
one yet who was a good farmer. I think they're born a 
little tired. Their strong hold is scheming, buying, and 




In the business center 



Roundabout the "Soo" 185 

selling. The Irish are worse still. They ain't brought 
up to farm in a business-like way over in the old coun- 
try, and they ain't used to farm machinery and don't 
take care of it. The French are only good at hunting 
and trapping. Then there's the half-breeds. When 
one of them comes into possession of a farm he wastes 
no time in selling it cheap to get it oif his hands. 

"I'd guarantee it was awful rough out on the lakes 
today, but the storm wont scare the captains of the 
freighters any. It'll be more likely to make 'em swear 
than to frighten 'em into praying. But no one will do 
any pleasure sailing. I'm sure I wouldn't want to go 
down the Rapids. You know the Chippewa Indians 
take people down in their canoes for the sake of fur- 
nishing 'em some excitement and novelty. I made the 
trip the first time that I was here in summer. A man 
and his v/ife had intended to go down at the same time, 
but the man was so afraid he'd get upsot that he backed 
out. He said he wouldn't make such a trip for a thou- 
sand dollars, and I says, ^The wife is the best man of 
the two.' 

"It looked dangerous, but I thought if she could go 
down I was blame sure I could. Besides, I'd made up 
my mind to go, and when I've made my mind up that 
settles it. I'm goin' anyway. You can't stop me. 
Well, the woman jumped into the canoe along side of 
me, and we started. There was an Indian at the bow 
and one at the stern to guide the boat, and we went at 
about the rate of forty-five miles an hour. As the feller 



1 86 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

says, 'You can't drink twice while you're goin' down.' 
We dashed along on the foaming waves thinkin' at 
times we was about to land right on top of some of the 
rocks, but we always slid one side or the other. Those 
Indians understood their business. It was very skilful 
steering, and at the end of the trip I felt I'd had my 
money's worth. It cost me half a dollar. 

"I've never wanted to shoot the rapids again. I 
ain't like a friend of mine I met at a fair one time. 
'Come into this tent,' he says. 'They've got the best 
show in here I ever saw in my life. ' 

"So I went in with him, and we saw a man double 
himself backwards and get through a hoop. When we 
came out, my friend says, 'Let's go in again.' 

" 'No,' I says. 'I've been in once and that's enough.' 

"But he went in six times just like a little boy. I 
says, 'You're a nice one to spend sixty cents to see a 
fellow go through a hoop.' He was from Pennsyl- 
vania." 

The town at the "Soo" is a place of considerable 
size with electric cars, and many substantial buildings 
both public and private. But I was less interested in 
the evidences of its being progressive and up-to-date 
than in some survivals of a more primitive period. 
Thus, on Sunday, I attended the morning service at a 
certain little wooden church, chiefly because the religion 
of its adherents was typical of what had wide accep- 
tance in the earlier days of the region. The church in- 
terior was plain almost to barrenness. There was no 



Roundabout the "Soo" 187 

musical Instrument, chairs served for seats, and a stove 
supplied heat. Only twenty persons were present, 
but the weather was threatening, and very likely this 
had adversely affected the size of the congregation. 
The preacher was youthful, intelligent and forceful. 
An oddity in his apparel was the absence of a necktie, 
but whether this was chance or had some spiritual 
significance, I cannot say. His flock was earnest and 
attentive, joined heartily in the singing, and when he 
called on Sister So-and-So or Brother This-and-That to 
lead in prayer, the person called on at once rose and 
began, while the rest of us kneeled with our elbows on 
our chairs. At frequent intervals the persons kneeling, 
and more especially the preacher, voiced their appro- 
bation by such exclamations as *'Amenl" and "Yes, 
Lord!" 

The sermon was In the main a torrent of loud-voiced 
exhortation. It was extemporaneous, and the preacher 
stood by his desk with a small Bible in his hand open at 
the text. Among other things he told how his folks 
left the "Soo" while he was quite youthful to make 
their home "twelve miles out in the wilderness. I 
thought it was a great hardship," said he, "to leave all 
the advantages of the town and move into that rough, 
lonely country, where I used to hear the wildcats and 
other animals howling at night. But here I was going 
fast for a young boy. I was going to the bad, and if I'd 
kept on I'd been In my grave by this time. They had 
religious meetings in the old log schoolhouse in the 



i88 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

vicinity where we'd moved, and it was there the Lord 
spoke to me. After I was saved I said, ^I'm glad I ever 
came to this place. ' But though I was converted at the 
old log schoolhouse, I must not omit to speak of my 
grandfather's influence. Every little while he'd wend 
his way from the house up a secluded path into the 
woods to pray, and I attribute my salvation to the fact 
that I had a praying grandfather. Praise the Lord 
for evermore!" 

After the sermon he announced that everybody was 
free to sing, pray, or testify. Nearly all the adults 
responded in turn, most of them with a testimony deliv- 
ered in a mechanical monotone, and the minister sitting 
by the pulpit encouraged the speakers with such phrases 
as "Bless the Lord," "That's true," "Help us Lord," 
"Let Thy spirit come more and more." 

The testimonies were characterized by a sort of abject 
emotionalism that did not seem to me at all edifying, 
and the most human person present was a small boy 
who put in his time playing with a wasp that clung to a 
bit of string. Some of the women were quite overcome 
by the recollection of the experiences they related and 
made frequent use of their handkerchiefs to wipe away 
tears and to blow their noses. Their testimonies ran 
somewhat in this wise: 

"I thank the Lord this morning that I am saved and 
sanctified. I'm thankful for all He's done for me, and 
that I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. I feel 
this morning that I belong to the Lord and He is mine. 



Roundabout the "Soo" 189 

I've always felt someway or other that He had His hand 
on me, since I was a child. But there was a time in my 
life — a few weeks before I was saved — that I was ter- 
ribly afraid I was one of the lost. I thought of Paul, 
the persecutor of the Christians. He was converted and 
turned right about face as it were, and why shouldn't 
I? After a while the light of the Lord shone on my 
heart, and I got the witness of the spirit that I was 
forgiven. Yet it was an awful cross to go to the preacher 
and tell him I was saved. It didn't seem as if I could do 
it. But now I'm on my way to heaven. It's a great 
mercy to belong to this church and live in this place, 
and I expect to stand in my post of duty to the end. 
I hope to meet you all about the great white throne." 

As the woman, tremulous and tearful, sank into her 
seat there was a chorus of "Amens," and the preacher 
exclaimed, "Oh glory to God for His wonderful sal- 
vation!" 

Before I left the "Soo" I obtained some lively remi- 
niscences of the past of the region from an enthusiastic 
long-time resident. "I came here," said he, "right 
on the heels of the Civil War in the autumn of '64. I 
hadn't expected to locate permanently in this wild new 
country, but at first I was too poor to leave. Then I 
bought a piece of land, and when I would have liked to 
go elsewhere I couldn't sell it for any reasonable price, 
and I wouldn't give it away. So I stayed. There were 
about four hundred and fifty inhabitants in the village 
when I came. Hardly more than one in ten were whites. 



190 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

The rest were French half-breeds and Indians. Log 
houses were common, but there were beginning to be 
sawmills in the region, and people were putting up 
more and more frame buildings. There was a Catholic 
church here, and had been for two hundred years, I 
suppose. A Protestant church was constructed when 
the canal was begun. 

"I taught the village school, and in addition to that 
I preached on Sundays, and I had to farm a little 
besides in order to keep my family from starving to 
death. Flour was twelve dollars a barrel, tea two dol- 
lars a pound, and a dollar would only buy four pounds 
of granulated sugar. But we could always buy fish 
cheap of the Indians, who went out into the rapids with 
their canoes and caught them in scoop nets. All we had 
to do was to go to the waterside and pay fifteen cents 
for the finest whitefish anybody ever tasted. Now 
you have to pay three or four times that for a fish of 
decidedly poorer quality. The deterioration is due to 
the fact that the water is less pure than it used to be. 
It is befouled by the ashes that the steamers dump up 
above. At present the Indians only fish for a short 
time when navigation opens. Formerly they were at 
it from early spring till late in the fall. You'd see an 
Indian in the bow of the canoe with a paddle, and one 
in the stern with a pole. They'd go out to some eddy 
below a large boulder, and the man behind would hold 
the boat steady while the other handled the scoop net. 
The net often brought up half a dozen fish at a time out 



Roundabout the "Soo" 191 

of the eddy. In a little while the men would return to 
the shore with a basket full. Oh, my dear sir, we had 
fish and potatoes — the best in the world — without 
limit. 

"I had nearly a hundred boys and girls in my school 
from five to twenty years of age, and at first I was the 
only teacher. I taught all subjects including Latin, 
algebra, physics, and bookkeeping. The building was 
fairly good, but inside there was a rough pine floor, and 
a mongrel sort of seats, ten or twelve feet long, made by 
some local carpenter. Half a dozen or more pupils sat 
in each seat — I could have a whole class in one — and you 
can imagine how difficult it was to keep order. 

"The railroad didn't get here until 1887, and we were 
pretty effectually isolated from the world in winter. 
We were careful to get in the fall what supplies we 
needed from the outside. When the last boat went 
away about the beginning of December we didn't ex- 
pect to get any response to the letters we sent for a 
month. The winter mail had to come from Thunder 
Bay by dog-train. From two to four dogs were hitched 
tandem to a toboggan-like sled in charge of two Indian 
runners on snowshoes. The trip was subject to various 
accidents and delays, and we never knew exactly when 
they would return. In their initial trip perhaps they'd 
have to camp on the shore of the Straits of Mackinac 
two or three weeks waiting for the channel to freeze 
over so they could cross, and meanwhile they'd live on 
rabbits. 



192 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"When we caught sight of them coming back there 
was a great commotion here at the * Soo.' Everybody 
who could hurried with much noise and cheering to 
meet the runners and escorted them into town, and 
wanted to know about their trip and all the news before 
the mail was opened. 

"I made the trip once myself. Besides the mail, we 
had on our trainneau blankets and a little camp equi- 
page and grub. One went ahead, and if he was taking a 
new trail he'd blaze the trees along so he'd know where 
he was if he came that way again. The other followed 
behind holding a rope attached to the trainneau to steer 
it and restrain it going down hill. Often we'd make 
forty miles in a day, and it was a hard trip. We wasted 
very little breath talking to each other, for ours was a 
lightning express, and we bent all our energies to making 
speed. Our pace was a sort of a dog trot much of the 
way. We'd go along making two short steps and then 
a long one which would be made alternately by the right 
and the left foot. After a person got accustomed to the 
gait it was about as easy as an ordinary walk. I doubt 
if there's any demand for that sort of thing on the 
continent of America now. Our vigorous speed natu- 
rally made us thirsty, yet we didn't dare to quench our 
thirst by eating snow — that would create colic. We 
waited till we got to running water. 

"When night came we'd stop in some forest dell, near 
a brook or spring, if possible. The dogs were always so 
tired they were willing to lie down, but we had work to 




^-4 

o 

'-I 
•<s. 

?^ 



Roundabout the "Soo" 193 

do. We'd gather some dry wood and start a fire the 
first thing, and suspend over it a kettle of water to heat. 
The kettle was hung at the end of a pole which was 
propped up at a convenient slant. With the ax we 
carried we'd cut evergreen brush, preparatory to build- 
ing a little shelter, and at the spot where we proposed 
to put it we'd scrape away the snow. Here two crotched 
sticks were set up a short distance apart, a pole laid 
across, and the boughs slanted down from that so the 
open front was toward the fire. The course of the wind 
had been previously observed, and the shed was so 
placed that the smoke blew away from it. 

"While one of us cooked the supper the other took 
his gun or revolver and went to see if he could scare up 
a rabbit or partridge. We carried a frying-pan and a 
teapot, and we had a supply of cornmeal, ham, bacon, 
sugar, tea, and hardtack. Tea was a great staple for a 
forest journey. You could live on it almost. The corn- 
meal was our dogs' food. We made a mush of it, saved 
some for ourselves, if we wanted any, and the rest we 
poured on the snow to cool for the dogs. They were so 
famished they'd eat it almost boiling hot. We only fed 
them once a day. The supper had to do them for 
twenty-four hours, except that we might throw them a 
very little at noon. They were useless to work if fed 
freely. It made them sick. If we got a rabbit we'd 
skin it, fry a little for ourselves and give the dogs the 
rest. Afterward, they'd generally hunt up the skin and 
eat that, too. 



194 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"On the same principle that we fed the dogs, an 
Indian, before he started off to hunt would eat nothing. 
If he had a full stomach he couldn't stand it to run. 
After the hunt was over he'd have a big feast. Oxen, 
too, that were being worked in the woods were fed very 
little in the morning, but given all they wanted at the 
end of the day, and they'd just fill themselves up and 
feed nearly all night. 

"It was plain fare we had for supper in our forest 
camp — without any jams and jellies, or any pies, pud- 
dings or other after-dinner desserts. No, sir, if we got a 
good sandwich and a cup of tea we were happy. The 
next thing we wanted to do was to roll up in our blankets 
and say our prayers. We had to be very careful or the 
dogs would make way with our food in the night while 
we were asleep. So we'd put it right in the shelter and 
perhaps throw the mailbag on top and make a pillow of 
it. There were wolves in the woods — in fact they are 
all over here now — but they didn't disturb us, and 
though we heard them they were too smart to let us 
see them. Sometimes the thermometer went a good 
many degrees below zero, yet it didn't make any differ- 
ence how cold the weather was to the world, it wasn't 
cold there in the woods. Nobody ever slept so sweetly 
in a Fifth Avenue palace as we did in our camp in God's 
open air, and morning came all too soon." 

A part of the time that I was in the vicinity of the 
"Soo" I spent at Brimley, a place of a thousand inhabi- 
tants a few miles west. A large and substantial new 



Roundabout the "Soo" 195 

school building was conspicuous in the town, and there 
was a good-sized Catholic church, and a creditable 
hotel and general store. But nearly all the other struc- 
tures were quite diminutive. The Congregational and 
Methodist churches were so tiny they looked like play- 
things, and the dwellings were mostly one-story affairs 
that often were of logs. Few of the log structures had 
more than two rooms within their walls, but usually 
there was a makeshift kitchen at the rear in the form of 
a leanto. 

The place is on the shore of a bay that reaches inland 
from Lake Superior, and when I heard that there was 
an Indian village off across this arm of water I was eager 
to visit it. I took the usual way thither, which was by a 
two and a half mile trestle built by a lumber company. 
Only a short section on the Brimley shore was still used 
for lumbering purposes. This section had a footpath of 
boards between the tracks, but beyond I had to step 
along on the sleepers, and these were much decayed 
and some of them broken. A brisk breeze blew, and the 
scurrying waves a few feet below had a tendency to 
make me feel dizzy. The previous autumn an Indian 
fell off and was drowned. He was alone, and it was not 
definitely known what had become of him until his 
body was found the next spring. 

On the far shore of the bay was formerly a big saw- 
mill and a populous village. Most of the buildings were 
still there pleasantly embowered in a wildwood grove, 
but the loneliness and silence of the place were rather 



196 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

gruesome. A mile farther on I came out of the woods 
on to a waste of sand swept by the winds from the lake, 
and here was an Indian hamlet of two hundred inhabi- 
tants. The houses set well back from the shore and 
straggled along for a considerable distance. Many were 
wholly exposed, but others peeped out from the borders 
of the brushy woodland into which the sand gradually 
merged. Some were of logs, and others were ugly 
shacks covered with tarred paper. Occasionally a house 
was whitewashed and tidy, yet its premises were pretty 
sure to be strewn with broken furniture, papers, rusty 
tin cans and similar refuse. The only really good build- 
ings were the church, schoolhouse, and teacher's dwell- 
ing, and for these the whites were responsible. 

A rural free delivery route includes the village, and 
each house had its metal letter box with the owner's 
name painted on it. These names were often Scotch or 
French, showing that men of those races had at some 
time married squaws of the tribe. Indeed, there were 
villagers who in complexion, dress and speech scarcely 
betrayed a traceof Indian. However, black, straight hair, 
olive-tinted skin and slightly oblique eyes were pre- 
dominant. On one of the knolls was a burial plot fenced 
in with barbed wire, but the fence was partially broken 
down and three horses were browsing among the graves. 
Several evergreen trees grew in the briary neglected 
inclosure, and around some of the family plots of graves 
was a rickety picket fence. Many of the single graves 
were protected by a low box-like board covering with a 



Roundabout the "Soo" 197 

hipped top to shed the rain. Some of the boxes were 
ruinous, and I could see inside that birch bark was laid 
on the ground to further protect the grave from the 
weather. A few graves had marble headstones, and the 
name was likely to be followed by a funereal verse or 
rhyme such as the following on the headstone of a chief: 



A faithful friend, a husband dear, 
A tender parent lieth here." 



Some graves had a slight board set up instead of a 
headstone. Often pebbles were laid around the border, 
and perhaps a cross or other decorative figure of stones 
was in the center. 

Four horses and three cows were owned in the hamlet. 
They did not look as if they got very good care. Their 
proprietors cut a little grass for them in the low hollows, 
stacked it and fenced in the stacks. This hay is not 
sufficient feed for the winter, and whatever more is 
needed is bought from the whites. Wells were scarce, 
and a single one frequently served several families, 
so some had to walk quite a distance to a well. The 
wells were only a few feet deep, with sides boxed in, and 
a cover put on top of the curb. A stick with the elbow 
of a branch left on at the butt was used to let pails down 
and pull them up. Usually a small potato patch ad- 
joined a home, but one could hardly expect a prolific 
yield in that sandy soil without fertilizer or rotation. 
The vines were small and frost-blackened. I saw no 



198 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

other crop, though one of the Indians said they raised 
turnips. 

It was curious, the contrast afforded by the first 
white man's place I came to when I went beyond the 
Indian domains. The man was evidently poor, yet here 
was comparative opulence — ploughed fields, big stacks 
of fodder, sturdy horses, and sleek cattle. 

After I returned to Brimley I fell in with a man who 
had a very thorough acquaintance with the habits of the 
local Indians, and we had a long chat about them. 
"They could have steady work if they wanted it," said 
he, "but they don't. Six days is the work limit for an 
Indian. Then he's got to have eighteen days' rest. 
However, I'm not saying that the white men are perfect 
when it comes to working. I had some carpentering 
done last summer, and there was one man I wanted to 
discharge. You could hear his mouth going clickety- 
clack all the time. He was no earthly good. But he 
belonged to the union, and if I'd turned him off" I'd 
have brought everything to a stop. 

"It don't cost an Indian much to live. He can get 
his own fish and venison, and if he buys a little sack of 
flour and a chunk of pork once in a while he's all right. 
An Indian who's got enough for breakfast don't worry 
till it's time for dinner. He has no energy, no ambition. 
A big strong man will lie around on a sunny slope all 
day. It's a kind of care-free, improvident animal con- 
tentment that you don't often find in white men. No- 
body lets 'em have goods on trust. I don't think they 



Roundabput the "Soo" 199 

intend to cheat you, but they're too irresponsible. 
If one of 'em owes you, and you go to him when he has 
money he'll pay, but if you don't get hold of him soon 
after he's received the money it'll be spent. 

"They don't often have wood enough ahead so but 
that they have to chop some to make a fire when they 
get up in the morning. To haul the wood, dogs are 
used hitched to a sled about three feet wide, six long and 
eight inches high. Its runners are made of maple or 
birch saplings, shaved thin and bent to the proper shape. 
Those unshod runners slip along nice in dry frosty 
weather. When the dogs return with a load the man is 
perhaps on ahead with a rope over his shoulder helping 
pull. They follow little winding paths through the 
woods, and sometimes contrive to drag back to the door 
a good-sized log, which will last quite a while and can be 
hacked at as often as there is need of replenishing the 
fire. 

"The Indians are great hands to trap rabbits. In the 
winter the rabbits have regular paths in the thick 
underbrush, and the Indians set snares in those rabbit 
runs. The snare consists of a noose of copper wire 
fastened to a twig bent over the path. When a rabbit 
gets into the noose the twig flies up and there he is hung. 
The Indians shoot a good many rabbits, but they mostly 
depend on snares because they don't often have the 
money to buy guns and ammunition. 

"In the huckleberry season they like to go off on the 
plains and camp there — a little village of them picking 



200 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

berries. A good picker can make three or four dollars 
a day. But it's the squaws that do the picking while 
the men watch the tent and do what little cooking is 
necessary. The squaws are apt to be very good work- 
ers, and are often quite neat and handy. Some of 'em 
are as clean people as I ever saw. But their houses are 
dark and full of tobacco smoke, and the men are not at 
all particular where they spit. Nevertheless, the 
squaws are great on the scrub, and they take sand and 
water and rub their floors till they wear them out. Soap 
isn't used much — it's too expensive. The squaws make 
mittens and moccasins out of deerskin, and they make 
mats out of grass, and do beadwork, and weave baskets 
with willow twigs or ash bark. They go out in the 
woods, chop down an ash tree, and pound oflf the bark, 
which separates into stringy strands very good for 
basket-making. Some of the articles they sell to the 
stores, and others they peddle from house to house and 
get money for 'em, or exchange 'em for old clothes. 
They're always in need of clothes, and every year I 
give a suit of mine to the old chief, William Wyoski, 
or Bill Whiskey as we call him for short. 

"Lots of those Indians have had a dandy education 
and can write as nice a hand as you'd want to see. As 
soon as they're out of school they return to the old ways 
of living, and it's doubtful if they've made a particle of 
progress in the last quarter of a century. They are 
inordinately fond of liquor, and I believe drink as much 
as ever. In some towns they can go into the saloons 




■Si 

O 



Roundabout the "Soo" 201 

and buy It themselves, In other towns they have to get 
someone else to do the buying for them. Both men and 
women drink, but it's usually only the men who take 
enough to get drunk. They always have liquor at their 
dances, and as a consequence sometimes get to fighting 
and stab each other with jack-knives. One of 'em, 
after a New Year's dance, had twenty-eight knife-cuts 
in his back, but he got well. That sounds as if they were 
pretty desperate characters when under the influence of 
liquor, yet the whites don't find a drunken Indian dan- 
gerous. He's just maudlin and foolish and excessively 
polite. If one of 'em dies in a drunk, the rest of the 
tribe never acknowledge the real cause of the death, 
but attribute it to * heart failure.' 

"When they want to have a dance they pick out the 
house that has the best floor. A quadrille they learned 
from the French is one of their favorite dances, because 
they can swing each other dizzy in it. The cutting-out 
jig is another favorite. A man and a woman begin the 
dance, and pretty soon a woman from among the by- 
standers elbows out the one dancing and takes her place. 
Then a man elbows out the man dancer, and they keep 
on cutting each other out until the music stops. The 
dancing continues all night. 

"They're pretty good about going to church, and they 
get quite excited at camp-meeting and shout and cry in 
testifying as to their religious experiences. But we have 
whites who carry on in the same way. We used to have 
a woman in this village who was what we call a Shouting 



202 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Methodist. Every morning, summer and winter alike, 
at seven o'clock or thereabouts, she'd raise her window 
and make a long prayer that was full of crying and 
yelling. My, how she did whoop it up! I never heard 
such a racket. 

"At Garden River there's a Catholic Indian Mission, 
with a beautiful grove around the church, and each year 
the Indians perform a sort of pilgrimage through the 
grove, shooting off guns, and stopping to pray at certain 
stations where a little rustic altar had been set up. 
They have a big time. 

"The superstitions and primitive methods of their 
ancestors still have a strong hold on them, and in case of 
sickness they're very apt to forget their education and 
religion and go to some native witch doctor. If the 
witch doctor will dance and shout around 'em they 
think they're goin' to be benefited. Our white doctors 
never know whether their orders will be obeyed by an 
Indian or not. One of 'em gave a squaw some medicine 
to take and told her to stay in bed. The next day he 
found her out in the snow splitting wood, and she hadn't 
touched the medicine. She told him she had some the 
same color before and it did her no good. 

"One of the great days in the year for our Indians 
is Fourth of July. There's fireworks and a parade at the 
*Soo, ' and they all hustle and do some work beforehand 
so as to earn a little money for the occasion. The 
whole tribe digs out on that day, and each person man- 
ages to have the price of the railroad fare back and forth. 



Roundabout the "Soo" 203 

"A while ago the government made a payment to 
the Indians — twenty-one dollars and sixteen cents 
apiece. Gosh ! You ought to have seen the excitement. 
Everyone had to come — squaws, kids and all, because 
the officials would only pay those that showed up. 
Some had to come so far that the railroad got practically 
all of the money for fare. One man whose name by 
chance wasn't on the records spent a good part of a 
year chasing around to get his pay. Whether they had 
little or much left, it was soon gone, but they made 
things jingle for a while. They'd come in to the Brimley 
hotel to buy their meals, and a flock of 'em were on 
every train that went to or came from the 'Soo. ' 
They're very fond of trinkets and showy things, and 
they got pretty well blossomed out with cheap jewelry. 
Have you noticed how they dress? The old squaws 
wear black, but the young girls try to follow the styles 
and to have the latest things in hats, even if the materi- 
als are so poor that the first time the wearers are caught 
out in the rain the colors of the feathers and ribbons 
run and the hats are all bedraggled. Red and purple 
are their favorite tints. 

"When it comes to spending money they're all pretty 
freakish. They're great consumers of canned goods, 
but are more apt to buy canned peaches and the like 
of that than more substantial and less expensive things. 
At one time a Canadian tribe received a considerable 
sum from their government, and a good many invested 
in pianos. It was funny to find a piano in a little log 



204 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

cabin, and they couldn't play — they could only drum 
on the instruments. 

"You see, with all the years they've been in contact 
with the whites, they don't lose their natural wildness, 
and I don't know as they ever will." 

Note. — ^The great attraction to the traveller who visits the "Soo" 
is the locks. These with the monster freighters constantly passing 
through furnish a most interesting spectacle. Close at hand are the 
foaming rapids, and there is a chance for excitement by taking a 
ride down them in a canoe manned by local Indians. Probably 
most of us feel a marked curiosity about the Indians, those wilder- 
ness dwellers who once had the entire continent to themselves, and 
doubtless some visitors at the "Soo" would be glad to spend a day 
going to see the Indians at home. Their village near Brimley is 
comparatively accessible and is fairly representative of how they 
live after they abandon their wigwams and adopt in a primitive 
sort of way the habits of the whites. 



X 

THE REGION OF THE PICTURED ROCKS 

THE Pictured Rocks extend for about ten miles 
along the southern coast of Lake Superior east 
of Munising. They are cliffs carved by the 
waves into many grottoes and pillars and fantastic 
forms, and the rocks are stained with color so that at 
a little distance an imaginative person can fancy many 
curious pictures on the face of the cliffs. They are par- 
ticularly charming on a clear day when there is a play 
of sunshine reflected on them from the waves. 

The main line of railroad does not touch the lake 
shore in that vicinity, and I got off the train one evening 
at a little town about three miles inland from Munising. 
It was stormy, and men in rubber coats were bus- 
tling about getting passengers for the Munising stage, 
piling baggage and people into the vehicle, and button- 
ing curtains snugly around. The prospect of a wet muddy 
drive through the night did not attract me, and I liked 
the look of a light not far away across the tracks, shining 
from the open door of a building that I was told was a 
hotel. Thither I turned my steps. The hotel was a 
small, rude, two-story structure in charge of a fat, 
elderly Irishwoman, who showed me to a room. This 
room had no lock on the door, but she said I would not 



2o6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

be disturbed, though I might hear some of "the boys," as 
she called the young railroad employees who were her 
boarders, coming in late at night from a dance. When 
morning arrived I discovered that in common with the 
other lodgers I was expected to wash my hands and face 
in the office where there was a basin on a stand, under- 
neath which was a pail for dirty water. I had the choice 
of three towels, but so many of the boarders had used 
them before I took my turn it was difficult to find a 
space on any of them that was either dry or clean. 

The chief topic of conversation at the breakfast table 
was an episode of the previous day. A drunken man 
had shot a duck that belonged to a villager. He brought 
it to the hotel and wanted the landlady to cook it for 
him. She would have done so, but the duck was too 
small and lacking in flesh. Then the man went his way, 
and a constable nabbed him and locked him up, which 
all agreed was a shame — "a poor fellow who was drunk 
and didn't know what he was about, and had only killed 
one little duck anyway." 

The man who sat next to me was a teamster. At 
present he was drawing hay from a marsh twenty miles 
distant. "I go one day and return the next," said he. 
"We cut the grass in summer, dry it and stack it, and we 
have to bring it to town before winter, because there's 
no track broken through the snow out that way. It's 
wilderness nearly all the distance, and an awful poor 
sandy road. I started from the marsh with my load at 
six o'clock yesterday morning, and it was almost dark 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 207 

when I got here. There's all kinds of lakes out there. 
A man is staying in a tent near the marsh to hunt and 
trap, and he helps me load. We've got about thirty ton 
to cart out." 

"Did yez get the lunch we put up for you day before 
yesterday?" asked the landlady who just then came in 
from the kitchen. 

"No," replied the teamster. 

"We knew you didn't," said the landlady's daughter 
who was waiting on the table. "The night before, we'd 
been to a grange meeting feed at the schoolhouse hall, 
and after that was over we put what wasn't eaten in two 
baskets and left 'em just inside of the schoolhouse door, 
as we told you we would. But the next morning three 
boys found the baskets and took 'em down to the 
swamp on the other side of the schoolhouse. Someone 
saw 'em with the baskets, and by and by told me, and I 
and another girl run after 'em. When we got there 
they'd emptied one basket and started on the other. 
'Twas too bad. There was a big dish of beans, and 
chicken, and fruit, and everything. Mr. Connors gave 
the boys an awful licking except the smallest one, who 
was led into the mischief by the others." 

"Well," said the teamster rising from the table, 
"what's done is done and can't be helped. It's time I 
was starting. I'm anxious to get that hay down here. 
Winter's almost due now." 

"That's so," said one of the other boarders. "You 
can look for snow in this country any time after the 



2o8 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Fourth of July — and any time before, too. You can't 
even raise corn to advantage here. It's only the early 
varieties that'll ripen." 

"We do well with potatoes," affirmed the teamster. 
"On one farm over south of the town there's eighty- 
three acres of 'em In one chunk." 

"Yes, the potatoes are all right here," acknowledged 
the other, "but I think the farmers' best chance is to 
raise grasshoppers and sell the hops." 

During the night the weather had cleared, and after 
breakfast I started to walk to Munlslng. The road 
wound along up and down the hills and in and out of the 
glens, sometimes amid farmlands, sometimes through 
woods that were attired in autumn-tinted glory. The 
foliage still dripped with the recent rain, and every puff 
of wind shook down the water-drops, and set some of 
the leaves adrift. Finally I descended to a wide hollow 
by the shore of the lake, and there was Munlslng — a 
good-sized new town, with a big pulp-mill and saw- 
mills, and straight-angled streets and monotonous rows 
of small wooden houses, and the usual proportion of 
stores, churches, and noisome saloons. 

To come out of the wholesome and satisfying wood- 
land with all its grace and beauty into this raw new 
town was far from agreeable, and I hastened to get 
away. By following the shore eastward, I soon left all 
habitations and highways behind. When I could, I kept 
to the narrow strip of beach which in places was stony, 
but usually was of fine white sand. There were frequent 




Making repairs 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 209 

stretches, however, so obstructed with logs and snags, 
pieces of wrecks and other drift rubbish that I had to 
make my way through the bordering woodland. There 
was always a path that threaded along in an irregular 
way a little back from the water, but the trail was so 
faint and brushy that in spots I had difficulty in dis- 
tinguishing it. Why there should have been any path 
at all through that lonely tangle was a mystery until I 
met a hunter laboring along it, who had been off eight 
or ten miles after ducks. The ground underfoot was 
often swampy, or my progress was half blocked by 
weeds and saplings, and now and then I was obliged to 
climb over or crawl under a tree that had fallen across 
the path. Occasionally I got off the trail entirely, but 
I would soon be brought to a full stop by the thick 
undergrowth and had to retrace my steps. Outside I 
could hear the wind assailing the forest and dashing the 
waves up on the shore, and far above me I could see the 
tree-tops swaying, yet in the woodland depths where I 
was walking it was very quiet, and only the faintest 
breath of air was stirring. 

At length I came to a point that reached far out into 
the lake. Here the ground was sandy, the woods more 
open, and there were patches of huckleberry bushes. 
I even found a few belated berries amid the reddened 
foliage. When I went to the other side of the point the 
swampy jungle resumed its sway along the shore, and I 
turned and struggled back to Munising. 

On another day I attempted an exploration in the 



2IO Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

opposite direction and plodded a woodland road that 
kept near the shore westward. Where the road was 
swampy It was made solid with corduroy and some of 
the logs used for the purpose were fully a foot In diam- 
eter. Those that made too pronounced a hump had 
been slightly hewed off at the places where the wagon 
wheels passed over them. Originally this had been a 
logging road, but the finer timber was now all gone from 
the neighboring forest, and the neglected road was 
getting mossy and grass-grown. 

I had begun to think of retracing my steps when I 
was surprised to come to a gate, and to see a house on 
ahead. I went on then more eagerly and soon was In a 
really delightful little fishermen's settlement of four 
dwellings, with accompanying barns and sheds, and a 
tiny schoolhouse. The shore was variegated with bluffs 
and green dells, and the rocks were much worn by the 
waves. Even the rocks that were many feet above the 
reach of the water as It Is now were deeply sculptured, 
plainly showing that the lake In ages past stood at a far 
higher level. Each house had an Individual and Inter- 
esting setting amid trees and rocks that gave a sense of 
cosiness and protection, and yet allowed an outlook on 
the lake. They were a part of nature to an unusual 
degree. Slender paths trodden In the turf linked the 
scattered buildings together, dodging here and there 
around ledges, or wet hollows, or tree clumps, and pass- 
ing through various gates. Little wharves reached out 
into the water, and there were great fishnet reels on 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 211 

them, and boats lay alongside, and on the adjacent 
shore were piles of driftwood rescued to use in the home 
stoves. On the slopes back of the houses were a number 
of open fields and pastures, and a few grazing cows and 
calves. 

The men farmed in a primitive sort of way, and they 
mowed all their grass with scythes. They hoed their 
potatoes and made hay mostly on days when the wind 
blew too hard for their boats to go out to the fishing- 
grounds. Incidentally, their firewood supply needed 
pretty constant attention. Their winter wood came 
from the forest, but for the summer fires a man would 
go in a rowboat along shore, pick up a load of driftwood, 
and drag some logs behind to the home waterside. 

The inmates of the four houses constituted most of 
the inhabitants of the town of Grand Island, and only 
in those four families were there any children. The four 
families were all closely related, and even the school- 
ma'am, though she came from a distance, was a relative. 
So few were the voters that the distribution of the town 
offices presented a problem of considerable difficulty. 
Financially the town was well-to-do, because a certain 
business organization that has large interests on the 
lakes chose to pay taxes on some of its shipping there. 
At one time the townsmen got critical because the 
shipping was assessed at no more than a quarter of its 
real value. "But when we told the company we were 
going to raise their valuation,'' said one of the villagers, 
"they replied, *A11 right, then we will enter it else- 



212 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

where. ' Of course we didn't want to lose that chunk of 
taxes, and so we kept quiet." 

Eleven children attended school. When I met and 
spoke to them their shy and gentle manners were quite 
delightful. There was none of the bold pertness so often 
characteristic of the town child. Their pleasures were 
rather limited. They told me how they played hide 
.and go seek, and angled after fish from the wharves, and 
sometimes went in a motor-boat to the fishing-grounds, 
but no doubt the woods and caves and waters around 
furnished much entertainment they forgot to mention. 
They had been only a few miles from home, and the 
water had been their usual highway when they jour- 
neyed out into the world. It was on the water, too, that 
their parents commonly travelled, and the corduroy 
road was seldom used except in winter. 

One of the men was building a boat in a long low 
shed on the hillside, and I spent a good deal of time 
sitting amid the chips and shavings there talking with 
him. The boat was seventeen feet long and six wide, 
and it nearly filled the shed, but left room at one end 
for a bench and a little stove. My companion wore a 
bushy full beard that stood out all around his face and 
framed in the features it did not hide. He was mild- 
mannered and soft-spoken, as if nature's mystery in 
the forest and on the waters had subdued any loud and 
rough tendencies; and he was philosophic and leisurely, 
not easily stirred to either ire or levity, yet sometimes 
breaking forth with a vigorously-stated opinion, or a 




Driftwood for home fires 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 213 

wholesome ripple of laughter. Once, when I entered 
the shed unexpectedly, I found him talking to himself. 
"That's a trick I learned while I was out in Oregon, 
years ago, " he said. " I had a ranch there in the woods 
three miles from the nearest family, with no company 
but my cattle and sheep; and yet I enjoyed myself 
there the same like as in a crowd— yes, better than in a 
crowd. For months I wouldn't see another human 
being, and as I didn't speak a word all that time, when 
I went out and saw people and tried to talk I couldn't. 
I knew how to make the sounds, and yet I couldn't make 
'em. I'd just whisper and squeak and squeal. If a 
person was silent a year, I believe he'd lose his voice 
altogether. To keep in practice I got to talkin' to 
myself, and now I can't break myself of it. I've known 
others who had the same habit. There was John Mur- 
ray who used to teach school here. He was educated 
for a Catholic priest, but he was gifted with drink, and 
after a while he built a cabin down at Mushrat Point, 
where he stayed all alone and raised potatoes. About 
once in so often he'd come and get a jug filled with 
whiskey so he could have a spree. He was always 
talkin'— talkin' to his work, talkin' to his old shoes, 
to his cat, to the little birds — anything. 

"And here you find me talkin' to my boat. I've got 
the keel laid and the ribs in place. Those ribs are cedar. 
I've been hunting for proper trees all summer. It's 
awful hard to find 'em with the natural crook— you bet 
it is! But you cut those that grow so and there's no 



214 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

spring in the ribs of your boat. They'll stay right there. 
Fm goin' to use spruce boards for the shell of the boat 
above the water line, but below I'll use oak because that 
stands buntin' agin' the rocks better. The bottom is 
very broad. I want to be able to navigate shallow water 
and to go ashore without wading and getting wet. 

"My father came to this region from Illinois about 
1840 and brought his family. He settled over on Grand 
Island, and his was the only white family anywhere 
around. As time went on he got to have quite a group 
of buildings — a house, store, blacksmith's shop, cooper's 
shop, stable, and warehouse, all of logs. When there 
began to be steamboats on the lake he chopped a good 
deal of cord wood and hauled it down to the point with 
his oxen to sell to the boats. 

"He kept several cows, raised hay and potatoes and 
other vegetables, did some fishing, built boats, and at 
times made steel traps in his blacksmith shop; but his 
main business was trading with the Injuns for furs. He 
kept such trinkets and supplies as they wanted, and of 
course, like all those that dealed with Injuns, he had to 
have a little whiskey for bait. However, he didn't let 
'em have all the drink they asked for. Trading with 
them was profitable. He gave them a little something 
for their furs — about a third of what they were worth, 
and charged four or five times the real value for what 
the Injuns bought. You must remember, though, there 
was considerable risk and expense getting things here. 
They were mostly brought in bateaux and canoes. The 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 215 

only larger boat on the lake at first was a little schooner 
that had been hauled over the portage at the 'Soo.' 
The furs we got were such as martin, fisher, otter, 
beaver, mushrat, and once in a while a bear or a link. 
Sometimes the water would be covered almost with the 
birch-bark canoes of the Injuns. The Injuns did their 
paddling when it was ca'm and stopped when the wind 
blowed, and they often camped on the island a day or 
two and then went on again. 

"At the places where they lived they planted some 
stuff such as potatoes, pumpkins, squashes, turnips and 
corn. Sometimes they'd have enough potatoes so 
they'd bury a part of 'em in the ground for winter use. 
They didn't wear as much clothes as they do now. In 
summer the men would often have on just a breech 
clout; but the big men— the chiefs— would perhaps 
wear leggin's and knee-breeches of buckskin, and have 
their hair full of feathers, and they'd be painted and 
everything else. I recollect seein' a party of Injun 
fishermen go by on the ice one winter day, and the wind 
was blowin' like the dickens, too; but they had no pants 
on, and their shirt-flaps were fluttering about their 
shanks. They were on snowshoes and had moccasins 
that came most up to their knees. They didn't seem to 
be sufferin'. No, they were havin' a good time, singing, 
cutting up, and raising the Old Harry, as they drew 
their sleds along. It depends on what you're used to. 
The warmer a man dresses, the more he feels the cold. 
"I never had any great liking for the Injuns, but they 



2i6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

had their good points. If one of 'em owed you, and he 
had a streak of luck he'd work his best to get the money 
to pay you. He'd come and pay you if he could, even 
after years had gone by. But you take a white man, 
and the longer he owes you the worse he hates to pay 
you. Ah, you want to collect a debt quick, for the 
chances of payment grow slimmer all the time. 

"The whites and the Injuns have had their wars, 
but you really couldn't blame the Injuns for bein' hostile 
once in a while. See how the whites destroyed the 
animals the Injuns depended on for subsistence — killed 
'em for sport and the markets. People tell about the 
Injuns bein' cruel and barbarous in their warfare, but 
the whites were a darn sight worse. The whites showed 
no mercy whatever. Sometimes an Injun would steal 
a little, but good heavens! look at what the whites 
would steal from the Injuns. In some way or other 
they'd get all the Injuns had; and it was natural for the 
whites to kind of stick together and defend one another 
whether they were right or not. It's the same in our 
treatment of the negroes — we ain't fair, we ain't just. 
The truth is, the white man is the worst animal there 
is — and the best. 

"The woods used to be full of trappers everywhere, 
and there's lots of 'em even yet. Father and I would go 
about fifteen miles south of here to where the country 
was all full of swamps and lakes and the finest hard 
timber. We'd go early in October carrying all the 
blankets and provisions we could stagger under. The 




Examining the nets 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 217 

first thing we did was to fix up our camps and get our 
traps out around. At our main camp we had a good log 
cabin with a puncheon roof. The roof had just one 
slant and was made of small straight pine and cedar 
logs. These were split once, and hollowed a little on 
the flat side, and then fitted to each other, first one 
turned up and next one turned down so the edges fitted 
into the hollows. The cracks were caulked with moss 
to prevent the roof from leaking. In the cabin, on the 
high side, we made a fireplace and chimney of big, heavy- 
puncheons set on end and running up through the roof 
a little. At the front of the fireplace the puncheons 
rested on a crosspiece about five feet from the floor. 
We didn't build the fire near enough to the puncheons 
so they'd burn, but they'd get awful black with a coat- 
ing of sut. The cabin had no windows. We dressed the 
hides outside, or, if the weather was bad, by the fire. 
"We had trails off^ every way from our main camp, 
and in the fall and early winter when the days were 
short we couldn't always make the rounds and get back. 
So we had some little leantos at the more distant points 
and often stopped in 'em over night. In three or four 
places where we wanted to paddle around on the water 
we kept a dugout. We had our lines blazed out through 
the wilderness from each lake or stream to another lake 
or stream. We'd simply mark the trees that came 
handiest, and if the underbrush and stuff was right thick 
we'd cut it. That would save a feller from takin' a 
header once in a while. After a time a slight footpath 



21 8 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

was worn that guided us, but when snow came we had 
to depend on the blazes. Later we'd tread a sort of dent 
in the snow that we could follow, and very few storms 
would entirely hide it. 

"When there was good snowshoeing we could always 
get back to the main camp at night. Oh, yes, you could 
travel twice as fur on snowshoes as you could when the 
ground was bare, and be less tired. Ten or twelve 
miles tramping in the woods before snow came was 
harder than twenty-five or thirty miles later with snow- 
shoes. You could just sail right along with those on 
your feet. That's partly because the brush was covered 
up or bent down by the snow, and the snow had leveled 
up a good deal over the logs, stones, hollers, and knolls. 

"Lots of times we'd make a trip around and get 
nothing, and then again we'd bring back a good load. 
If we caught an animal alive we'd skin it at the trap. 
It didn't take long to pull his jacket off. We'd use the 
carcass for bait or throw it away. Mink, beaver, and 
otter, which we mostly caught under water, would be 
drowned but not frozen. Martins, fishers, and such 
animals as we'd ketch in deadfalls were of course frozen 
stiff, and we had to carry 'em to camp. It would be a 
day or two before they'd thaw out so we could take off 
the hides. 

"Every eight or ten days we'd come back home to get 
another load of food. We'd fetch in our furs and per- 
haps some fresh meat — a deer we'd shot or a good fat 
coon we'd trapped. Most generally we'd stay a couple 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 219 

of nights, for there was always wood to cut or something 
else to do to fix the family comfortable. 

"I've read stories about trapping wild animals in the 
woods, but they weren't much like what I've experi- 
enced. The stories would have a good deal less excite- 
ment in 'em if the authors told the truth. It's very 
rare that an animal will attack you. He only does it 
when he gets cornered and can't help himself any other 
way. Every animal will fight for its life. Even a mouse, 
if you get him in a cup so he can't escape, will turn on 
you. He'll bite you, by George! Yet, let him have a 
chance to run and away he'll go. If you corner a buck 
he's so crazy to escape he'll stick his prongs into you, 
or maybe jump over your head. I believe one of these 
timber deer, if he had a good start, could jump over this 
shanty. Swamp deer are somewhat shorter legged and 
can't makes as high leaps. 

"The Injuns were a little afraid of bears and wolves, 
but I don't know why. I've had no fear of their at- 
tacktin' me. I never see but one or two wolves, and I 
didn't know what they was they was so gentle. I 
thought they was big dogs. But I know their tracks. 
The two front toes reach out longer than a dog's and 
the foot makes a more diamond shaped print. 

"Of course, if you go and get hold of cubs when the 
old she-bear is around, she will fight and cuff you; and 
a man must expect to be hurt if he goes to ketchin' hold 
of a wounded animal. You can't blame a creature for 
fighting that has a big steel trap on its foot, though you 



220 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

can bet he would put himself out of sight in a hurry if 
he could break loose. I've heard of people getting hurt 
by wild animals that were free in the forest, but I can't 
believe it. The man who gets hurt under such circum- 
stances must be a blame fool. I didn't consider any of 
the animals we had here dangerous to man, and I never 
lay awake nights for fear of 'em. Men who've lived 
among 'em pay no more attention to 'em than to domes- 
tic animals." 

Toward the end of the day the fishermen who had 
been out in the boats returned, and I obtained per- 
mission to stay over night in the home of one of them. 
While supper was preparing I sat by the stove in the 
kitchen, a large room that was dimly lighted by a single 
kerosene lamp. The baby was toddling about the floor 
and frequently getting into trouble and squalling voci- 
ferously, which sometimes caused the mother to pick 
it up and try to work with it in her arms. The other 
children were all uneasy and inclined to be quarrelsome 
and noisy. They regarded the food on the table with 
hungry eyes, and one of the small boys edged around to 
where he could begin eating his huckleberry sauce. 
His mother presently observed him and ordered him 
away, but he soon crept back, and, crouching in the 
shadow of the table with his chin on the level with its 
top, he continued to spoon the sauce to his mouth and 
stain the spread at the same time. 

By and by the fisherman, who had been milking the 
cow, cutting up firewood, bringing water from the lake, 




School children 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 221 

and doing other small tasks came in, and we sat down 
to the table. After supper, he and I drew back our 
chairs and talked, while the mother cleared away the 
dishes and got the children off to bed. We heard a 
motor boat go past, and he told whose it was. The 
sound of each motor had its individuality, and the people 
along shore recognized their neighbors' boats without 
seeing them. He and the other fishermen followed their 
calling the year around. In summer they were out on 
the lake in their gasoline launches from seven in the 
morning until four in the afternoon; and in winter they 
went with dog teams and fished through the ice. 

"When we're winter fishing," said he, "my brother 
and I cut three holes apiece where the bottom has a 
gradual pitch, and the three holes are each over a dif- 
ferent depth, for the fish have a way of biting in one 
depth for a while and then quitting and biting at 
another depth. We hang around and watch our lines, 
and when a fish gives two or three little bobs at a hook 
we make a grab. It's lake trout we get mostly in winter. 
We ketch 'em up to about forty pounds. Sturgeon are 
the only fish in these waters that grow larger, and 
they're scarce. A big one will weigh eighty pounds or 
more. We didn't use to think they were good for any- 
thing, but now, by Jove! they bring about the best 
price. 

"Our summer fishing is largely done with nets, but 
we use lines, too — lines that are maybe a couple of miles 
long and have a hook every twenty feet. Once in a 



222 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

while we run across a lawyer streak with our lines, and 
'bout every hook will have a lawyer on it. These law- 
yers, or bullheads as they're called by some, are ugly 
lookin' fish — too much like a lizard, and the taste is 
nothing extra, but the flesh is white, and there's not 
many bones. One time a fellow down here at Munising 
went to skinning 'em and calling 'em 'fresh water cod' 
and he worked up quite a trade at ten and twelve cents 
a pound. People who didn't know what fish it really 
was thought 'twas fine. He was an old Canadian 
Scotchman, and rather an undesirable citizen, with a 
habit of lifting other people's nets, and examining their 
hooks. Oh, he was a bad one! He'd fish in the brooks 
for trout, and if he couldn't ketch 'em with a hook and 
line he'd dynamite the streams. He lived from hand to 
mouth, and when he got a little more money than would 
pay for his next meal he'd spend it for whiskey. If he 
was put in jail he didn't care. Then the public had to 
feed him and his family, too. He was just as contented 
in that jail eatin' three meals a day, as he was outside. 
So finally they shipped him back to Canada. 

"I didn't use to stick to fishing as closely as I do now. 
There was a time when I hunted deer for the Detroit 
market. We had a three months' open season then 
beginning August 15th, and I made a pretty good thing. 
I hunted in the forest south of here. Another fellow 
hunted with me, and we had several tents and log shacks 
for camps. We kept a horse and wagon then, and hired 
a man to do the camp cooking, get wood for the fire, and 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 223 

take the game to the railroad station. I've killed as 
high as seven deer in a day. We'd hunt from daylight 
to dark. The deer feed very early in the morning and 
again along late in the afternoon. But I used to shoot 
a good many that were lying down. About noon, if few 
hunters were in the woods, they'd be resting on the 
hills, where they could look well to leeward. They 
depended on their scent to guard 'em from the other 
direction. If they'd been much disturbed they'd go to 
the swamps. 

"Sometimes I'd kill a deer six or eight miles from 
camp. Then I'd carry it to some lumbering road where 
the team could be sent to pick it up. I didn't leave it 
on the ground, for the flesh would have soured and ani- 
mals would have eaten it; but I'd hang it on a limb and 
tie a paper to a string beside it to dangle around and 
scare off the birds. It was within easy reach of the 
wolves, but a wolf won't take anything in this country 
that's hung up. He's suspicious and won't go near it 
at all. I've seen where a drove of wolves come within 
sight of a deer hanging up, and then turned and run. 

"A bear's different. He'll take any meat he can get at. 
He don't care as long as no one is around at the time. 
I guess he'd take it off the corner of your shanty after 
dark. If he gets your deer he'll drag it away a piece, 
eat all he wants and bury the rest with leaves and sticks. 
You can generally calculate on his coming back after 
the buried meat the second night. Then perhaps I'd 
trap or shoot him; but if it was too early in the season 



224 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

a 

for his hide to be good I wouldn't bother. Once I had 
a ham hung up on a sapling. I'd bent the sapling 
down, cut off the top, tied on the ham, and let it 
swing up fifteen or twenty feet in the air. But a bear 
come along later, bent down the sapling and went off 
with the ham. I saw his claw marks on the bark of the 
sapling. 

"There's still occasional wolves near here. Bounty 
and hide together a wolf fetches about fifty dollars. 
P'ison is about the best thing to work with if you are 
after wolves, but by the time you've p'isoned one or two 
out of a flock the rest have got cute and won't touch 
nothin'. Then you have to try some other scheme." 

Bedtime had come, and the fisherman showed me to 
my room. To go upstairs we had to push aside a piece 
of old sail tacked up to serve instead of a door at the 
foot of the stairs, and we had to step over a board nailed 
across to keep the baby from climbing out of sight and 
hearing. My room was rather small and forlorn. There 
was little furniture, and the white plaster walls had 
never been papered. However, that mattered little, 
for the window opened toward the lake and I was soon 
lulled to sleep by the waves lapping along the shore. 

When I went back to the town the next day it was on 
one of the fishermen's launches. I lay in the warm 
sunshine on the deck while the boat cleft its swift way 
through the clear water, and skimmed along past the 
wooded shores with their golden foliaged hardwood, 
and their dark evergreen spires. The experience was 




The duck hunter 



The Region of the Pictured Rocks 225 

delightful, and that water journey and my stay in the 
idyllic little fishing village are among the pleasantest 
memories I have of the Great Lakes. 

Note. — The Pictured Rocks have such repute that passenger 
steamers on Lake Superior, when the weather permits, approach as 
near shore as possible to afford a view of them. But the best way to 
see this fantastic and romantic five-mile stretch of sandstone 
bluffs with its staining of color and its cascades, is to go there from 
Munising in a motor boat. Sail Rock, which resembles a sloop in 
full sail, the Grand Portal, and the Chapel, are perhaps the most 
striking features of the series of cliffs. This vicinity is in the heart 
of the Hiawatha country, and Munising occupies the site of the 
wigwam of Nokomis. Grand Island, which lies off shore here has 
marked attractions as a summer resort. There is good fishing in 
the region, and Lake Superior fish have the reputation of being 
better than those from any of its companion lakes. Superior is the 
greatest body of fresh water on the globe, and has an average depth 
of nine hundred feet, while Erie, the shallowest of the lakes, averages 
only eighty-four feet. The coast line of Superior is very irregular 
and has a length of fifteen hundred miles. It is generally rockbound 
and its shores excel in picturesqueness. Its size and depth and 
northerly situation combine to keep its waters very cold even in 
midsummer, and this with the clearness of the water give the fish 
their fine quality. 



XI 



THE COPPER COUNTRY 



FROM the broad peninsula that reaches up into 
Lake Superior and forms the most northerly- 
portion of the state of Michigan comes one- 
seventh of the world's production of copper. I wanted 
to see the region, and in particular I wanted to see the 
famous Calumet and Hecla mine. It was my hope that 
the scenery would be wildly impressive, and that the 
aspect of the mine would in some way be romantically 
interesting. But the country is a rather featureless 
rolling upland, and the mine is in the midst of a city of 
forty thousand people, and what you see of the property 
at the surface is scarcely more impressive than a group 
of factory buildings would be. Calumet, as the city is 
called, is notably clean, substantially built and attrac- 
tive. Its streets are wide and well paved, excellent 
roads lead out into the farm country surrounding, and 
here and there among the buildings rise dark Lombardy 
poplars — trees that give a touch of distinction and 
scenic decorativeness to any place. A slight ridge runs 
through the town and continues far out into the regions 
adjacent. This marks the copper-bearing streak of 
rock, and at intervals on it are huddles of mine build- 
ings and smoke-belching chimneys. 



The Copper Country 227 

Copper was mined on the peninsula as early as 1843, 
and much rich ore was taken out long before the Calu- 
met lode was discovered. When I began to inquire 
where I could get first hand information about the 
beginnings of the Calumet and Hecla mine I was 
directed to a somewhat eccentric German who was an 
early comer to the region. "He's got a little saloon in 
a ramshackle building he owns on one of the main busi- 
ness streets," I was told. "The saloon is in the back 
corner of a large room, and the rest of the space is fur- 
nished with rude counters and tables. Travelling men 
rent the privilege of showing their goods there. You'll 
find him sitting by the stove near his bar. He's an old 
man now. There's not many customers to bother him, 
so he has plenty of time to talk with you. You wouldn't 
think to see him that he was a millionaire, but he is. 
He commenced, at the very first, to buy Calumet and 
Hecla stock, and he's been putting his income into that 
stock ever since. Its par value is twenty-five dollars a 
share, but the shares have sold for more than a thousand 
dollars, and in the last forty years the company has paid 
over a hundred million dollars in dividends. The old 
German's chief pleasure in life has been the accumula- 
tion of money, and his chief sorrow the necessity of 
spending some of it. The pennies have always looked 
large to him, and he has let none escape from him when 
he could possibly avoid such a misfortune. In fact, 
he has the reputation of being the most tight-fisted man 
in Michigan. It's told that he once offered the small 



228 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

boys on the street ten cents apiece for any empty wine 
barrels they'd bring to him. He knew very well he was 
simply inducing them to steal from the premises of 
other saloon-keepers, but that didn't trouble him. He 
could sell the barrels for a dollar and a half each, and he 
paid for all the boys secured and asked no questions. 
But his game was discovered after a while, and such a 
row was made that he quit. 

"Before the electric road was built from here to Lake 
Linden he used to drive a dray and take baggage back 
and forth for travelling men. On a cold winter day one 
of these travelling men noticed that the old man had no 
gloves, and he took him into a store and bought him a 
pair. The traveller afterward, with some pride, in- 
formed certain Calumet people how he had befriended 
the old dray driver. They laughed at him. 'Why!' 
they said, 'that fellow is not so poverty-stricken as 
you suppose. He could buy out you, and the firm you 
represent, too. He's worth a good many hundreds of 
thousands of dollars.' 

"A reporter once made him very wrathy by printing 
in the paper some disparaging comments on his parsi- 
mony, and immediately afterward the public were 
treated to the spectacle of seeing him follow the reporter 
up the street brandishing an ax. It looked as if there 
might be a bloody tragedy, but the old man had too 
good a business sense of the disastrous consequences 
to himself if he actually committed an assault, and he 
did not go beyond noise and bluster. " 




The well 



The Copper Country 229 

I was sufficiently interested to hunt up the old man's 
place of business, and when I went in he sat beside the 
stove near his dingy bar, with a blanket wrapped about 
his feeble and withered form. "It was fifty-six years 
ago that I came to the copper peninsula," said he. 
"Mines had been started along the shore, but when the 
Civil War came to an end the price of copper dropped 
from forty-five cents a pound to fifteen and knocked 
'em all higher'n a kite. Besides that, the ore was rotten 
after they got down two or three hundred feet. 'Twas 
so poor it wouldn't pay to mine it the way they handled 
ore then, even if copper had been worth much more than 
fifteen cents. But now processes are so perfected 
there's a profit in handling ore with only one per cent, 
of metal in it. Some of the mines are a mile deep. 

"Right across the street here in the olden time was an 
Indian camp. A white man bought the Indians out for 
a little whiskey or something, and they moved on. 
Then he put up a log cabin, which he called the 'Half- 
Way House,' because it was half way between the 
Quincy mine to the south and the Clifi" mine to the 
north. It was the only house here. He sold liquor, 
and he kept travellers over night. For the privilege of 
sleeping on the floor he charged fifty cents. There was 
straw to lie on, but no blankets were furnished out here 
in the bush in them days. You didn't suff"er, though. 
There was a good fire. 

"In the autumn of 1865 I was working down at Han- 
cock on Portage Lake, thirteen miles from here, and 



230 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

the man from the Half-Way House was down there one 
day and happened to run across me. He said he wanted 
to buy a sow, and I told him where he could get one. 
Later in the day I saw him going back with the sow on a 
big rough lumber wagon. It was all woods the whole 
distance — no roads whatever — only blazed trails, but 
he got home all right. After a while the sow had a litter 
of pigs in a hole left by the roots of a big pine tree that 
had blown over. When the man went into the hole to 
ketch the pigs he disturbed the leaves and rubbish that 
had accumulated there and found chunks of copper 
scattered around. That was the way this rich thing — 
the Calumet lode — was discovered. If it hadn't been 
for the sow this vein of copper might still be unknown. 
"A company at once prepared to develop the prop- 
erty. The land around was wild, barren, and naturally 
almost worthless, but they paid twelve thousand dollars 
for three hundred and twenty acres. I hauled the first 
copper ore from Calumet to Hancock, where there was 
a crusher. That winter a hundred or more teams were 
going back and forth, and the road would wear full of 
pitch holes. We had men working nights shoveling 
snow into the holes and pouring on water to freeze a 
smooth road. The mining company built some houses, 
close around the mine, at first of squared timber and 
then frame buildings, and a little settlement began to 
grow here in the woods. There was from five to twenty- 
five per cent, of copper in the Calumet and Hecla ore, 
but no dividends were paid until 1870." 




Binding barley 



The Copper Country 231 

In my acquaintance with the town I could not but 
be impressed with the cosmopolitan character of its 
inhabitants. The mine workers include about thirty 
different nationalities. Finns predominate, and Aus- 
trians and Italians are particularly numerous. Many 
of them have an ambition to go back to the old country, 
and simply work and save here a few years, and then 
return to their native land. They carry enough with 
them to establish themselves there comfortably and 
lift themselves out of what had formerly been a grinding 
poverty. The Finns, however, stay in America, for 
since Finland has been "gobbled up'* by Russia they 
don't feel that they have any country. In a year or 
two a man will earn enough to bring his family across 
the Atlantic. To many of the Finns mining is simply 
a temporary makeshift. They have a liking for agri- 
culture — especially for dairying, and they soon buy a 
little farm. 

Some of the early comers from abroad started small 
stores in the town. They sold goods, but besides were 
often caretakers of their countrymen's money. The 
immigrants wouldn't trust the banks, and they turned 
over their savings to the merchants without requiring 
either security or interest — nothing but a receipt. The 
merchants invested the money at eight or ten per cent, 
and it was an important factor in making them wealthy. 
They have had the use of that money forty years or 
more in some instances. 

The price of copper has dropped radically of late 



232 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

years, and in consequence dividends have been cut and 
wages lowered. "But we are not kicking," said one 
man with whom I talked. "We've always had steady 
employment here, and while the employers are perhaps 
selfish like the rest of the world and look out pretty 
sharply for their own interests they have treated us 
reasonably well." 

Work underground does not seem to be disliked by 
the men, and sons of miners become miners in their turn 
as a matter of course. The Calumet and Hecla Com- 
pany alone employs about five thousand men under- 
ground, which represents about half the entire force of 
such workers in the district. The men work in two ten 
hour shifts. "I know men," one of my acquaintances 
observed, "who've worked down below for ten or fifteen 
years, but in spite of spending so many hours of every 
day out of the sunshine in darkness that's only lighted 
by the little candles in their hats, they are as hearty and 
happy as they were at first. Apparently the mine has 
no bad effect on a man's health, unless perhaps the 
dampness brings on rheumatism." 

One day I walked to Lake Linden, five miles distant. 
A raw chilly wind was blowing, but the sky was almost 
cloudless, and there was an agreeable and satisfying 
warmth on protected slopes and on the sunny side of 
buildings. The land had been cleared in recent years, 
and stumps were plentiful even in the cultivated fields, 
though they were thickest in the pastures where the 
cattle and horses were grazing. But the farmers were 



The Copper Country 233 

gradually pulling them up and burning them, either in 
the field, or for firewood in the home stoves. I met 
numerous loads of potatoes that were going to the 
town, and in wayside fields others were being dug. 
Most of the diggers were men, but not infrequently 
women with their skirts fluttering in the wind were 
helping. The earth was yielding bountifully, and the 
smooth big tubers, as fork or hook tossed them out, 
made a fair and delightful sight to any lover of good 
husbandry. 

The farmers to whom I spoke showed the potatoes 
with pride, and doubted if anywhere in the world I 
would find the soil doing much better. Some raised 
oats and barley, turnips and garden truck, but potatoes 
seemed to be the main crop. One man afiirmed that 
the potatoes were not bringing the price they ought to 
bring in the town, and in explanation said a good many 
farmers were indebted to the grocers after a fashion 
that enabled the latter to set their own price on the 
products they received in payment. The grocers had 
been furnishing food supplies to these farmers on 
credit, and they could oblige them to deliver the pota- 
toes at their pleasure and accept whatever they chose 
to give. For a time in the fall this method of liquidat- 
ing debts kept the price low, but as a whole the big 
town was an excellent market. 

The farmhouses sometimes commanded beautiful 
and far-reaching views over the eastern lowlands even 
to the blue waters of Lake Superior, but the dwellings 



234 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

were small, unshaded by trees, and ungraced by shrub- 
bery or vines. Often they were merely unpainted 
shacks, and a huddle of sheds served instead of a barn, 
and wagons and farm implements and litter were all 
about. Their aspect was almost wholly dreary, yet the 
bounty that the earth yielded was to the inmates prob- 
ably ample compensation. 

One of my wayside acquaintances was an Englishman 
from the county of Cornwall. He had worked many 
years in the copper mines, and I asked him about the 
dangers of the occupation. "I've been very lucky," 
said he, "in the matter of accidents. The worst thing 
that ever happened to me was to have a big gob of earth 
drop on my head. It nearly broke my neck, and if it 
had been stone it would have finished me. You never 
know when a mass of rock hanging loose up above may 
drop on to you, and there's always the risk that a blast 
may go off when you're not safely sheltered. A good 
many of my old comrades have been killed. Hodge is 
gone, and Farrell, and lots of others. It's rare a month 
goes past but that someone is killed, and the monthly 
average is five or six. However, that's not a very high 
proportion considering the great number of men that 
are employed. A single death at a time causes no excite- 
ment, and gets scarcely more than passing comment. 
Yet perhaps the fellow killed may have a family in the 
old country, or be supporting a poor mother over there. 

"Once a cable broke, a car dropped, and ten men 
were killed. Another time there was an explosion and 




The kite-flyers 



The Copper Country 235 

a fire down in a mine. Most of the men got out, but 
quite a number were still missing when the company 
closed the openings in order to smother the fire and 
save the timber supports in the mine. The chances 
were that the men were all dead, but there's been bitter 
feeling against the company ever since because it 
seemed more eager to save dollars than to save lives. 
After the fire was out they brought up the bodies of the 
men who had perished. There were thirty of them, 
and I saw them laid out at the mouth of the mine." 

Every little while a train of small dump cars loaded 
with ore slid down the long descent from the Calumet 
ridge to Lake Linden, where there was a great crushing 
plant. After the rock has been pulverized and the 
copper extracted, the waste is carried away in a muddy 
stream through a flume that empties on to a growing 
pile of sediment of mammoth proportions. The pile is, 
in fact, now a considerable hill covering many acres. 
It is a reddish barren mass of earth on which not a thing 
grows, and it is gradually encroaching on the lake. 
Formerly the lake water was bright and clear, and was 
a favorite resort for fishermen. Now the water is 
clouded with sediment, and no more fish are caught. 
The commercial center of the copper peninsula is 
at the twin cities of Hancock and Houghton on Portage 
Lake. This lake is so attenuated just there that it 
would easily be mistaken for a river, and a drawbridge 
of moderate length serves to span it and connect the 
two cities. Some ancient convulsion, or other chance, 



236 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

left a rift right across the peninsula. A deep slender 
lake filled most of the rift, but where this lake at either 
end approached the greater lake there were marshes 
around which the Indians and early navigators had to 
make a portage. About forty years ago a channel was 
dredged through the marshes, and now the big freighters 
and steamers that plough the lakes pass freely through. 
Most of the enormous output of the mines is sent away 
by boat from the two cities on Portage Lake, and a 
single vessel has been known to carry a cargo of copper 
from here valued at over a million dollars. 

The land rises on either side of the waterway very 
steeply, and the lateral streets of the towns cling along 
the slopes in successive terraces. On the Houghton 
side the cross streets climb to rocky upland where the 
children fly their kites, and the cows pasture. Across 
the narrow lake, the lofty hill behind the town is of 
comparatively smooth turf and earth much furrowed 
with deep ravines. On the summit can be seen tall 
structures at the mouth of mines with accompanying 
chimneys and huge dumps of stone, and ore trains are 
in sight up there moving about, toy-like in the distance. 
Big freighters pass at intervals on the lake, others are 
taking on copper or unloading coal, motor boats are 
making trips hither and thither, and gulls are flitting 
about and drifting on the water. The combination of 
mines and shipping, thrifty towns and imposing scenery 
was very attractive. 

I was informed that millionaires were numerous 



The Copper Country 237 

among the local inhabitants, and that there were no 
poor whatever. The minimum wage for day laborers was 
asserted to be three dollars. As to the past of the towns, 
what interested me most was the story of a fire that 
nearly wiped out Hancock. "That fire was in 1869," 
said an informant, " and I came near missing it. Fd had a 
little scrap with my old man, and I drew a hundred 
dollars from the bank and went down to Chicago. 
Every day while I was there I got a letter from mother 
asking me to come home. Father wanted me back, too, 
but he wouldn't say so. He was one of them fellers 
that are rough at times, but good at heart, and he got 
mother to do the soft-soaping. I stayed a month loafing 
around sight-seeing. I didn't look for any job, because 
I kind of expected to come back. Well, on the Sunday 
after I got here we had that fire. At that time Hancock 
was a wild West town ten years old. Yes, it was a 
rough place then, and we thought nothing of seeing 
half a dozen saloon fronts smashed. Some feller who 
was raising a disturbance would be thrown out, and 
he'd throw cordwood or a beer barrel in, and the fellers 
inside would chuck some things back at him. Cordwood 
was always handy. We burned it in our stoves, and it 
was delivered right at our front doors. The pile was 
left there till we got good and ready to store it else- 
where; or perhaps it was never moved at all except as 
we gradually took it in as we wanted the wood to use. 
"The town had no fire protection, and there wasn't 
a'stone or brick building in the place. They were all 



238 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

frame structures, mostly two stories high. In case of 
fire we'd fill pails and try to put it out that way. 

"About eight o'clock that Sunday morning, the 
eleventh of April, someone hollered, 'Fire!' On the 
other side of the street from our place was a saloon 
run by a Frenchman. They'd had a wedding there that 
started Saturday night. In the back part of the build- 
ing was a dining room they'd cleared up to have a dance 
in connection with the wedding. Oh, we'd very likely 
have twenty dances along the street here on a Saturday 
night in them days, and they'd last till it was time to 
go to church the next morning. That chivaree at the 
Frenchman's was still going on when a lamp got knocked 
over, and all at once the house was ablaze. The wind 
was blowing, the fire got fiercer, and leaped across to 
our side of the street. We had a boarding-house, and 
every boarder grabbed something and went out the 
back door. In that way most of our furniture was 
saved. The last thing rescued on our premises was the 
cow. She was in a shed behind the house. We had 
turned her loose soon after the fire started, but she ran 
back in. Now the boarders got hold of her, and two 
pulled by her horns and another licked behind so she 
had to go whether she wanted to or not. The fire 
swept on and only stopped when there was nothing 
else within reach to burn. The business section of the 
town was gone and most of the residences, but there 
were scattered dwellings left on the hill, and the people 
in them took in their friends. 




On Portage Lake 



The Copper Country 239 

"Rebuilding was started at once, and Monday after- 
noon we were selling drinks in a shack right on our lot. 
That shack, somewhat enlarged from time to time, 
lasted us for three years. We'd have put up a good 
building sooner, but the company we was insured in 
failed. However, like most of the rest that had fire 
losses, we gradually recovered, and the town grew up 
so much better than it was before that the people have 
never mourned much over the disaster. In fact, you 
take Hancock and Houghton together and there's 
hardly any cities in the northwest, no matter what the 
size, that are so attractive and prosperous." 

Note. — ^The copper peninsula claims to have some of the finest 
hotels in the northwest, and the traveller can sojourn there in com- 
fort and even luxury. Some of the scenery along Portage Lake is 
imposingly attractive, and the busy waterway is not lacking in 
interest, but among the mines the region is rather soberly monoton- 
ous; yet here is a great industry and a person can spend at least a 
day or two to advantage seeing something of how the work goes 
forward. 



XII 

THE LAND OF IRON 

IN the vicinity of Lake Superior, in the three states 
of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, is one of 
the greatest iron-producing regions in the world. 
The deposits of northern Minnesota are particularly 
noteworthy, and their vastness makes quite plausible 
the suggestion that here the mighty Vulcan, the black- 
smith god, located his forge. Iron was first discovered 
in the state about 1880 at Tower on Vermilion Lake, a 
hundred miles north from Duluth. Tower was on one of 
the main routes of the aborigines through the wilder- 
ness. It had been a trading post of the famous Hudson 
Bay Company, and thither Indians paddled from the 
north by a network of lakes and streams with their 
fur-laden canoes. Then they packed the furs on rudely- 
built conveyances, to which they hitched dogs, and 
went on southward by the Old Vermilion Trail to Fond 
du Lac at the head of Lake Superior. 

When iron was found Tower was a little woodland 
settlement of only a few houses, and the first white 
woman to be numbered among its inhabitants had 
recently arrived, walking from Duluth and taking four 
days for the trip. She followed a tote road cut through 
the forest. This was wide enough to accommodate 



The Land of Iron 241 

a team, but was chiefly useful for bringing in supplies 
on sleds in the winter. Mining was started, and the 
village grew, but the mining operations were later 
transferred about two miles distant to Jasper Peak, a 
height that has the distinction of being the loftiest 
elevation in Minnesota, though it is scarcely more than 
a ragged, rounded hill and is in no wise impressive. 
A new community has established itself at the foot of 
the Peak, and is more populous than the older town. 
The shifting of the mining business was a severe blow 
to Tower's prosperity, and in recent years its chief 
support has come from two great sawmills on the shores 
of the adjacent lake. But now the lumber in the imme- 
diate region has been practically exhausted, and the 
sawmills will soon hum with industry no more. 

The town, as I saw it, had five weakling churches 
and seventeen prosperous saloons, the latter chiefly 
supported by the woodsmen. On either side of a long 
broad business street was a row of two-story buildings, 
some of brick and some wooden, varying from the 
shabby to the substantial, and intermitting with 
vacant lots. Buildings once stood on certain of these 
vacant lots, but they had burned and their sites were 
marked by cellar holes filled with bricks, rusty iron, and 
like rubbish. On the other lots were rocks and piles of 
cordwood, wagons, boards and boxes, and whatever 
else it came handy to leave there. Unoccupied houses 
were numerous, and there was something of melancholy 
in the aspect of the town, though it still keeps up a 



242 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

brave show of optimism. It stands on ground that a 
few years ago was forest, yet, as is usual in such cases, 
it is not graced by a single tree that is at all sizable. 
Cows wandered out to pasturage in the morning, and 
back to the home barns in the evening. They went and 
came loiteringly at their own free will, stopping to 
nibble by roadsides and in open lots, and rambling 
wherever fields were not fenced against them. Some, 
if not all the creatures, were loose at night, as I learned 
by having my sleep disturbed by a cow and a dog that 
ran afoul of each other and made a great uproar of 
bellowing and barking. 

If one leaves the town he can wander for miles and 
miles along wild river banks and irregular lake shores 
and not see a sign of man's habitation; or if there is an 
occasional dwelling it is likely to be some rude hut, the 
temporary abode of hunter or fisherman, or is some 
small farmhouse where a husbandman has started to 
hew a home out of the wilderness. The season was far 
advanced here in the north, the trees were nearly bare 
of leafage, and though the turf in the pastures was still 
green, the taller grasses and weeds were browned by the 
touch of the frost, and rustled dry in the wind. Scarce 
a blossom was left among the wildflowers to brighten 
the landscape, and whenever I got ofi^ the beaten ways 
I gathered numerous horned and sticky seeds on my 
clothing. 

A cruise on Vermilion Lake aff"ords the best means 
of seeing the region. The lake is marvellously narrow 




At the end of the day 



The Land of Iron 243 

and tortuous, full of unexpected twists and turns, and 
contains three hundred and fifty-five islands that vary 
from a few square yards to several thousand acres in 
extent, and it has no less than eight hundred miles of 
shore line, though its extreme length as the bird flies is 
only thirty-five miles. The bordering woodland has 
been devastated by the lumbermen and fires, but on 
the islands there is still a good deal of the original forest 
where the dark masses of the tamarack, pine, and spruce 
are predominant. Few settlers have invaded the 
shores, and the quiet is seldom disturbed except by the 
winds, or the crack of a branch broken by passing game, 
or by the call of a bird to its mate. As you cruise along 
you never have any large body of water in sight, and to 
continue much farther seems impossible, and then you 
slip around a point and through a narrow passage, and 
go on. 

One evening when I was in a Tower store a man who 
was loitering there remarked on the drought that was 
prevailing in the region. "I never seen such a year as 
we been havin','' said he. "There was very little snow 
in the winter, and we had summer weather in March. 
Why! the thermometer went up to eighty in the shade, 
right here in this cold country. They claim the comet 
that came so near the earth about that time upset the 
weather, but I don't know. Anyway it's been tremen- 
dous dry all the year. We haven't had enough rain to 
hardly moisten the ground. Generally we have a good 
flood in the spring. It comes after considerable of the 



244 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

snow has melted off, but there's a lot left in the ravines 
to go quick with a rain and make a good head of water 
on the little streams. That gives a chance to float the 
logs out, but this year we didn't get a flood, and a great 
many logs are stranded up in the woods. 

"I own a meadow — oh, a matter of eighteen acres, 
— and I usually get twenty-five to thirty tons of hay 
off it. This year I thought I did well to harvest seven 
or eight. We didn't get a half crop even on the wettest 
flats. When I planted my potatoes, there was so little 
moisture in the ground and the weather was so hot 
most of 'em were simply roasted, but those that come 
up produced fine. We can't raise apples here — our 
winters are too severe, and all our meat and flour and 
the like of that comes from the outside. It takes work 
to make a farm in this country. You can't do as they 
do on the prairies — just put in your plough and break 
up the ground. Here you have to clear off the trees 
and brush and stumps, and the job goes slow for a man 
with only two hands, you know. Often the land is so 
tormented hilly and stony that ploughing is impossible. 
They haven't been farming around here more'n four or 
five years, and it's mostly done on a small scale as yet. 

"This country has been living off the timber so far, 
and our farmers mostly depend on winter work in the 
woods to keep 'em going, and there's a whole lot of 
farmer boys from the southern and western parts of the 
state who hike up here to get employment in the forest 
camps for the winter. But the woodsmen are mostly 



The Land of Iron 245 

a roaming class of labor, here one while and way off 
somewhere else a little later. Take it along in summer 
when men are wanted out in the Western harvest fields 
they flock there. Nine-tenths of 'em, the minute they 
strike town after they get paid off, start in to spend all 
their money for booze. I've seen lots of 'em right here 
who've come out of the woods with from one hundred 
to two hundred dollars, and it wouldn't last 'em three 
days. Seems to me I'd buy some clothes to keep me 
warm anyway. But no, the fellow with money goes 
from saloon to saloon, and of course he treats the crowd. 
There's plenty of others who're broke that follow right 
around. By and by he's too drunk to travel farther, 
and he lies down in the back part of a saloon and goes 
to sleep. When he wakes up he finds his pockets are 
empty. The money he worked so long and hard for is 
gone. It never does him any good, and yet he's always 
kickin' about his wages. 

"After his spree is over and he's penniless, the saloon- 
keeper perhaps makes him a small loan, and the fellow 
beats his way to some town like Duluth where there 
are employment agencies. He signs up to go to work 
at a place where help is needed and is furnished with a 
railroad ticket to his new destination, the cost of which 
is to be later deducted from his earnings. Agencies 
don't care to hire a man who has only the clothes he 
wears. They insist that he shall have a 'turkey' — that 
is some baggage, for a man without anything except 
what he wears is apt to be too useless and slippery. 



246 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Often a fellow will get around the baggage requirement 
by going to some back alley and picking up old shoes 
and rags which he makes into a pack. It used to be a 
trick of the men sent out by the agencies to get off the 
train before they reached the place where their job was; 
or if they went to the proper place they'd work a day or 
two, and then say the job wasn't quite what they ex- 
pected and then they'd quit and go to work somewhere 
else. Sometimes the agent may have made the work 
look a little more inducing than it really was, but mostly 
the men were faking. They got so they'd do that all 
the time, and the employer would lose his advances for 
fare and agent's fee and couldn't help himself. Now, 
however, a new law fixes that, and the man who skips 
off is liable to be arrested. " 

In one of my rambles I went down to the lakeside 
and walked through the widespread area of lumber 
piles, platforms, and lines of railroad track around the 
sawmills. Farther on was a wooded point jutting out 
into the lake, and a path that led into the thin forest 
growth enticed me to continue in that direction. I had 
only gone a short distance when I came to a small board 
and tar-paper shanty. It was a mere one-room shed 
occupied by a Frenchman who had married a squaw. 
The latter was at home and busy about her work. She 
appeared modest and gentle, and her regular features 
were rather attractive. Another interesting member 
of the family was a baby swaddled up in blankets and 
fastened to a board that could be set up, hung up, 



The Land of Iron 247 

carried on the back or in the arms, or could be laid down 
wherever handy. Behind the cabin was a plot scarcely 
larger than the cabin itself, where a few vegetables 
were raised. 

During the summer there had been a tepee and a 
wigwam on the point, and the wigwam's dome-shaped 
framework was still standing. It was of slender birch 
poles, half of which were set in the ground about two 
feet apart and bent over to meet at the top, and the rest 
were horizontal ones the same distance apart tied to the 
others with narrow strips of cedar bark. Near by were 
several rude little outdoor benches and tables that had 
been made of boards from the sawmill. 

When I inquired where I could find Indians actually 
living in such aboriginal dwellings as had been on this 
point, I was told that I could get the information at an 
Indian mission a few miles away across an arm of the 
lake. So I hired a boat and rowed to the mission. 
There I was rejoiced to learn that such a settlement as 
I wished to see existed within easy walking distance. 
Two Indian boys were detailed to act as my guides, 
and we crossed a field, crawled through a barbed wire 
fence, and entered the woods, following a narrow trail 
that showed signs of being much travelled. The border- 
ing trees had been cut away enough not to be trouble- 
some, but there were numerous roots and stones that 
made the path far from comfortably smooth. Moreover 
it passed over a good deal of boggy lowland where poles 
and sticks and logs had been laid to keep the wayfarer 



248 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

out of the mud, though these afforded a rather unstable 
footing. Fallen leaves strewed the path, and made even 
its best portions slippery, and I could not get a grip 
with my feet to move easily and rapidly. I marvelled 
at the progress of my guides. The little fellows seemed 
to be making no effort, but they swung along with a 
soft-paced swiftness that constantly threatened to 
carry them out of sight. I had to scramble forward at 
my best pace. 

It was quite attractive there on that winding path, 
going up and down the little hills. Much of the time 
we were in birch woods where the sunlight fell on the 
white trunks, and on the golden leaves still clinging to 
the twigs, and on the many-tinted forest carpet. 

By and by we came out of the woods to a brushy 
slope bordering the lake, and here were the scattered 
habitations of the Indians, some of which were little 
one-room log cabins, some huts of cedar bark, and 
others wigwams of birch bark. Our first greeting was 
from the village dogs. They were inclined to bark and 
growl and snap at us. Evidently my guides had ex- 
pected this, for as we drew near to the hamlet they had 
picked up some stout cudgels, and now they thwacked 
every dog that came within reach so vigorously that the 
surly creatures retreated with bristling fur to a safe 
distance. 

Adjacent to each hut was a tripod of poles from which 
a chain or piece of wire dangled down and suspended a 
kettle or pail over a fire built below. The huts them- 



The Land of Iron 249 

selves were mostly warmed with stoves, and a stovepipe 
projected through the roof. One wigwam, however, 
had the fire in the middle on the floor, and a hole above 
at the top of the birch bark dome offered inducements 
for the smoke to escape skyward. But doubtless 
atmospheric conditions were often such that the smoke 
filled the hut. The bark covering was in strips two feet 
or more wide and five or six feet long, with a slender 
stick fastened at either end to keep the bark from split- 
ting and curling. The bark is only brittle in cold 
weather, and when not in use the strips could be rolled 
up fairly compact. Basswood bark was used to sew on 
the end sticks, and the same material served for stitch- 
ing strips together. So loosely did the strips lie on the 
wigwam framework that wind and storms could not 
have been excluded very eff'ectively. Instead of birch 
bark some of the Indians of the region covered the wig- 
wam frames with deerhides, which they fastened on 
with the hair to the weather. 

An Indian with a wigwam habitation is not very 
closely tied to a particular location and he moves fre- 
quently. When he does so he leaves the old framework 
behind. I was informed that often when an Indian 
kills large game such as a deer or a moose he will hang 
it up, return and load his wigwam and family in his 
canoe and go where the game is to set up housekeeping 
and stay at least as long as the meat lasts. 

In the stoveless wigwam that I saw, there was a sewing 
machine tilted unsteadily sidewise on the uneven ground 



250 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

back of the fire. Blankets and other household belong- 
ings bestrewed the interior in confused masses that 
were not very suggestive of cleanliness. Several 
children were sitting or lying on the blankets, and a 
ponderously fat old squaw with her elbows on her knees 
was squatted at the entrance smoking a short pipe. 
Many frequently-used articles were hung up outside or 
were scattered about near by, and for some distance from 
the hut the ground was strewn with cast-off clothing, 
shoes, worn-out utensils, and pieces of fur and bunches 
of feathers that attested carelessness and a good deal 
of unthrifty waste. Certainly there was no regard for 
appearances or for the wholesomeness of the surround- 
ings. The Indians' attempts at agriculture had been 
limited to a few tiny patches scratched over and planted 
to potatoes. 

A path led from each hut to the shore, where some 
light, shapely birch bark canoes were drawn up. A 
man can make a canoe in five days, but it is necessary 
now to go a long way back in the woods to find a good 
straight tree of sufficient size. Sometimes a single 
piece of bark extends the entire length of the canoe, 
but more likely two or three are used, and at the broader 
part an extra strip is added on either side. The seams 
are sewed with balsam roots and made water-tight with 
a black daubing of spruce gum mixed with cedar ashes. 

In one place, among the ragged bushes on the slope, 
was a group of graves, each with a covering of some 
sort, or with little palings around it. A slender pole with 










-Pi, 



The Land of Iron 251 

a white flag at the top was set up on the more recent 
graves. The latest death had been that of an old woman 
who was nearly blind. She went to the woods to get 
bark to kindle her fire, and became bewildered and 
wandered ofi^ in the wrong direction. After a two days' 
search the Indians found her dead body. 

The men whom I saw in the hamlet seemed to have 
little to do but loaf. Nor were the women much bur- 
dened with work either — why should they be with so 
small an amount of furniture, dishes, or anything else 
to be cared ior? One man showed me a partridge he 
had shot, and then he laid it on the ground. A moment 
later he hastily snatched it up just in time to rescue it 
from a dog that was about to grab it. He hung the 
bird out of the dog's reach on a framework at the side 
of his cabin that seemed to be planned for a shed. 

When I returned to Tower I met an old man at the 
boat landing and made some inquiry about the fishing; 
but I had to repeat the question twice in an increasingly 
loud tone of voice before I got an answer. "Fm kind 
of hard of hearing," said he. "I don't always notice 
when people speak to me, and it's a terrible setback, for 
I miss a lot of information I'd get otherwise. I hear 
folks talking, but I don't know what they're saying. 
Oh, yes, there's good fishing in Vermilion Lake. May 
is the best time. It's then we ketch the wall-eyed pike. 
They're a wonderful good fish — they certainly are 
first-class, and they're large, too. I've heard people 
say they'd seen 'em that would weigh ten or twelve 



252 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

pounds, but I never caught one that would weigh over 
three or four. I have the most fun fishing when we go 
blueberrying in August, though that's counted about 
the poorest month in the year for it. 

"Blueberries! oh, my! I've seen 'em shipped almost 
by the carload from here. The Indians bring 'em in 
from the marshes around the lake. Some years, too, 
we have quite a crop of raspberries, but there were none 
this year worth lookin' at. In blueberrying time our 
family goes twelve miles by boat up to Trout Lake and 
camp. One of my sons stays here to take care of the 
farm. He's a pretty good houseboy, and he can cook 
and make butter, besides milking the cows. Every 
few days he comes up to the camp in a gasoline boat 
with supplies. We campers work when we like and 
rest when we like. That's the way to take an outing. 
We bring sugar and cans, and we can the berries right 
up in good shape at the camp." 

I was at Tower on Sunday. It seemed as if most of 
the men deserted the town that day to ramble in the 
woods or make excursions on the lake, and after they 
were gone footsteps were very infrequent on the board 
walks. Probably fifty men went out that day from 
Tower to hunt ducks and partridges, but it is doubtful 
if they brought back ten birds all told. When one of 
these men, gun in hand, and a pack on his back held in 
place by shoulder straps, passed the hotel, a young 
fellow sitting near me in the office remarked: "He's 
got his pack full of whiskey and hardtack, and I suppose 



The Land of Iron 253 

he'll enjoy himself whether he has any luck or not. 
Five or six years ago you could go out and in a fore- 
noon get all the partridges you could carry. Now you 
can stay all day and not get enough for a mess hardly. 
People here hunt 'em the year around. Even if they 
see a partridge on her nest they'll shoot the head off 
from her; and the hunters use partridges for bait in 
their traps. We need about fifteen game wardens to 
the square mile to keep things straight. What are you 
going to do with these fellows who work over here at 
the mines .^ They pay no attention to the game laws. 
Year in and year out they supply themselves with 
venison and don't buy beef. They'll kill deer in mid- 
summer when the creatures are nothing but skin and 
bones. The meat on the same deer in autumn would 
amount to three or four times as much. 

"Another nuisance is the worthless dogs that amuse 
themselves by deer-chasing. You kill a deer after a 
dog has been chasing it a long time, and the meat is no 
good. The blood gets heated and turns the flesh black. 
Besides, usually as soon as a dog goes to chasing a deer, 
a hunter can never get in sight of the game. To let a 
dog chase a deer all over the woods is not right, and if 
I ketch one doing it, he's a dead dog, I don't care whose 
he is. I had a little experience in another part of the 
state with a fellow who lived on the edge of a town in a 
cabin where he kept a few small articles to sell. He had 
a dog that he always spoke of as very valuable, but I 
wouldn't have given four cents for a carload of such 






254 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

dogs. It was a dog that had chased most all the deer 
out of that country. You'd hear the sound of the 
creature howling through the woods night and day for 
a week at a time. If the game warden went to his owner 
and complained, the fellow would just hunch up his 
shoulders a little and say he didn't propose to have any 
game warden dictatin' to him about his dog. 

But somebody'll shoot him/ says the warden. 
Then Fll shoot the feller,' says the man. 
You just do that,' says the warden, 'and if this 
is a civilized country, as I think it is, you'll be strung 
up before you're a day older.' 

"Well, the feller was strong with his mouth, and to 
hear him talkin' a good many would be scared to death. 
But his talk made no difference to me. I knew he was 
a wind-jammer, and that he was much more likely to 
tell what he'd do to you if you were two or three miles 
away than right to your face. One day when I was out 
with my gun I heard his dog coming in my direction, 
and the dog was chasing a deer, for pretty soon the deer 
ran past. I let the deer go, but as soon as the dog got 
into the little open where I was I shot him in the head. 
He gave one leap and dropped dead in his tracks. I 
went to the man's cabin, and I says: 'I found your dog 
out in the woods chasing a deer, and I shot him. You'll 
find him dead down the road. Now, what are you going 
to do about it.f*' 

" 'Well,' he says, 'you done a good job. That dog 
was never at home anyway.' 




The partridge 



The Land of Iron 255 

"Then I bought a plug of tobacco and went along. 
He never bothered me, yet if Pd gone sneaking around 
he might have taken a shot at me on the sly — not to 
kill but to scare me. 

"That was a great region for ducks. One day three 
of us killed between sixty and seventy there on Ripple 
River up by Mud Lake, and we only had an old tub of 
a boat. You couldn't drive 'em away. You'd fire, and 
they'd rise, but would only go a little distance when 
they'd drop right back. 

"We have a few moose around the lake here, and 
farther north, back where no roads have been opened 
up, they tell me moose are numerous. A game warden 
who's just returned from a fortnight's trip in that 
direction says he saw fifty odd. There's a boy you 
can't scare with a dog. I've run right onto one when I 
was hunting birds. Antlers and all he looked as big as 
a house to me, and I wasn't long in backing away. But 
a moose is as easy to shoot as a cow if you manage right. 

"I was with a game warden once who went to look up 
some Indians of the old roaming sort who won't stay 
on a reservation and who'd been killing moose out of 
season. We found all kinds of moose meat right in their 
cabin, and the warden told 'em he placed 'em under 
arrest. I doubted if they'd come along, for he was only 
a little feller, while there were seven of them and they 
were a tough lookin' bunch; but they just grunted and 
obeyed orders. They got thirty or forty days in jail 
apiece, and they swore they'd kill that warden. They'll 



256 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

do it, too, if they ever have the right sort of chance. 
When they get a dislike for a man they're like bulldogs 
— you can't do anything with 'em. But they're cow- 
ardly and won't touch him unless they are sure they 
have the advantage. 

"I and another feller were trapping that winter near 
where those seven Indians had their cabin. Not long 
before the warden arrested 'em they stole a wolf we'd 
poisoned. We followed the trail of the animal from 
where it took the poisoned meat to where it died. 
They'd gone off with it and wagged brush behind 'em 
to cover up their tracks. A greenhorn couldn't have 
followed such a trail, but we did. The snow was deep, 
and as they wore only moccasins, they sank into it so it 
wasn't easy to wipe out all their footprints. We wore 
skees, and it didn't take us long to get to their cabin. 
We went right in and told 'em they'd got our wolf and 
that we wanted it. They had it behind the stove thaw- 
ing out, and they brought it to us without any 
argument. 

"Skees are used a good bit up here, but an Indian 
or a hunter usually prefers snowshoes. If the skees are 
made of soft wood the snow sticks to 'em on a melting 
day. Once when there was a crust I made twenty-one 
miles in three hours on skees with the thermometer 
twenty degrees below zero. 

"One while I worked in a little post office and store 
on a reservation west of here. Some of the old bucks 
there were pretty wild and had hair as long as my arm. 



The Land of Iron 257 

The agent didn't believe there was any good In the 
Indians, and he was always suspicious and never would 
trust 'em. The natural consequence was that they felt 
much the same about him, but I had no trouble 
with them. They wouldn't jump a bill. If they wanted 
something and said they'd pay at a certain time they'd 
come with the money as agreed. I think it's their 
nature to be honest; but the half-breeds are pretty 
wise, and they teach the others to be crooked, so if you 
buy furs of them you've got to look out. The hides 
might be moth-eaten, or not properly stretched or 
something else the matter that you wouldn't notice. 
They know it, but they'll take advantage of you that 
way. 

"Another thing — if you was a stranger and was to 
meet 'em in the woods and ask questions, you couldn't 
depend at all on their answers. They don't know 
whether you're trying to arrest them or what you're at, 
and they'll reply at random and may say *no' when 
they ought to say 'yes.' Often you'd think they didn't 
understand your language. They can talk, but they 
won't. They'll just grunt, and that'll be about all 
you'll get out of 'em; and yet if you give those same 
Indians a little booze they'll talk all day. 

"They're pretty decent after you get to know them. 
I certainly have got some good pointers from them 
about hunting. They're always on the go, and they 
know the country. So they understand the habits of 
the animals and can beat a white man tracking and 



258 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

getting where the game is; but they're not good shots. 
Perhaps that's because they generally have some cheap 
old gun that's no good, and which they can't shoot to 
hit a barn except at short range. I had a gun once that 
was so worn and rusty I was going to throw it away, 
but I showed it to an Indian, and he said, 'Me give 
otter skin for it.' We made the exchange and I sold 
the skin for seventeen dollars. 

"My grandfather was a doctor in what was then a 
recently settled part of the state. One winter day an 
Indian came to his house and wanted him to go seventy 
miles up in the woods to do what he could for another 
Indian who had broken his leg. My grandfather started 
at once. He went with a tote team as far as he could, 
and walked the rest of the way on snowshoes. He had 
no anaesthetic, and when he got to the man with the 
broken leg he said, *Now, no fuss, no hollering, and I'll 
give you a big drink of whiskey when I get through, 
and in order to make you brave I'll give you two drinks 
before I begin.' 

"That was sufficient inducement. The feller stood 
the ordeal of having his leg set without even grunting, 
and he was down in town before spring. 

"I can take a quart of whiskey and ten pounds of 
salt pork and go where the Indians live and get more 
moccasins, bead work, and baskets than ten dollars 
would buy here. I got a birch-bark canoe worth 
twenty-five dollars from two squaws for a quart of 
whiskey one time. But you need to be careful how you 



The Land of Iron 259 

take advantage of 'em. If you want to buy a canoe, 
and the owner says 'Five dollars,' you may say, *Two 
and a half.' 

" *A11 right,' he says, and you pay the money and go 
off with your canoe. But he feels you haven't given 
him a fair price, and he'll steal the canoe from you later 
and fix it so you'll never know it again. Your' only 
chance to save it is to ketch him in the act. I never 
seen any Indian yet that wouldn't steal. They won't 
steal from their best friend, but they will from anyone 
else, and they only tell the truth when it's for their 
benefit to do so. Work isn't much to their liking, and 
if you have a number of 'em at the same job they're no 
good unless you can keep 'em apart. But if you string 
'em along they'll all get together in a few minutes to 
have a powwow. Or perhaps they're workin' away and 
they see a porcupine — they'll get clubs and chase the 
darn thing and kill it. Then they'll all quit work and 
go to their wigwams to have a dance and a feast. 

"The expense of living the way they do is mighty 
small, and most of 'em prefer to hunt, fish, and trap, and 
stay in the woods rather than to work for wages. If a 
man gets a mink once a week he'll sell the hide for 
enough to keep his family. They ain't particular what 
they eat. When they find a dead animal that ain't 
spoiled, it don't matter what it is, they'll use it for 
food. I've known 'em to dig up and eat a cow that was 
killed by the railroad and had been buried. Once I 
was workin' in a lumber camp, and a horse died of dis- 



26o Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

ease. We dragged it out in the woods, and a bobcat 
had been eating at it a week when some squaws came 
with an axe and cut it up and carried it off. I seen that 
myself. 

"They like sweet things. Candy — gee! it'd sur- 
prise you how much they can stow away; and they'll 
eat all the fruit you can pile in front of 'em. They're 
great for chewing gum. The kind they can get the 
most of for a nickel suits 'em best. A nickel's worth is 
supposed to make five chews, but it makes just one for 
an Indian. A squaw will put enough in her mouth to 
gag a horse — she'll chew a lump as big as my fist. The 
older squaws are crazy after chewing-tobacco, and 
they're so fond of smoking they'll pick cigar butts up 
off the street and smoke 'em. 

"It used to be the Indian custom to put their dead 
up in trees on a platform among the branches, but 
they've been burying in the ground for a long time now. 
They wrap the bodies up in skins and only dig down 
deep enough so they can cover 'em up good. I've dug 
up some of the old graves. There's tomahawks and 
knives and arrow-heads in 'em — ^just the fighting outfit. 
The things are all of stone, and it's a mystery to me 
how they ever made such sharp points and edges." 

Tower, considered historically and in its location on 
Vermilion Lake with the Indians and varied wild life 
in the adjacent forest, is probably the most interesting 
town in the iron region; but there are other vicinities 
that as iron producers are more important and have a 




o 

-Si 

--Si 

*^ 

-Si 



The Land of Iron 261 

more picturesque individuality. In particular there 
are the mines of the Mesabe Range. These are mostly 
open pits. By some magic the ore was deposited in 
vast pockets only thinly concealed with earth. When 
the earth has been stripped away, there is the treasure, 
a reddish mass, often finely pulverized, and seldom 
more solid than a crumbly rock. The deeper a mine 
goes and the more area it covers, the more useless earth 
and rock roundabout that have to be removed in order 
to get at the ore and make easy grades for the ore cars 
to run right Into the pits. This waste material piled 
roundabout often has the appearance of mighty forti- 
fications, and the terraced pits themselves yawn to 
amazing depths. 

At seven in the morning, at noon, and in the early 
evening blasts are set off in a magnificent series of 
detonations like heavy cannonading, and when the 
last echoes fade away a great red cloud of dust drifts 
up from the chasm and slowly dispels. Then presently 
the giant steam shovels resume work loading the ore 
trains. A single shovel takes up from four to eight 
tons at a dip and will keep three locomotives and as 
many trains of dump cars busy. When the cars reach 
the lake docks the bottoms are opened, and the loads 
rush down long chutes into the holds of the vessels, 
or into great storage buildings from which the ore can 
be poured into the vessels at a dozen or more hatches 
simultaneously. 

On the day I left the Mesabe Range a roistering 



262 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

wind was blowing that fanned the fires in the dry 
northern forests into fierce conflagrations. Several 
towns were burned on the Canadian border, numerous 
lives were lost, and a vast extent of valuable forest was 
ruined. As I travelled southward the country was 
enveloped in a dense gray haze of smoke, and our train 
ran through two or three fires, but these were mere 
smudges compared with those that were raging in the 
heavy forests a few scores of miles distant. There was 
no fine forest left within sight of the railroad, and for 
tens of miles at a stretch the half devastated woodland 
as the lumbermen had left it showed the marks of 
recent fires. These fires had probably not been espe- 
cially dangerous, nor was the mutilated woodland here 
of much value, but still the loss was sufficiently dis- 
maying, and the outlook for the future is gloomy. 
Conditions are such that the region seems doomed to 
fresh conflagrations as long as there is anything left 
on the wild lands that will burn. 

Note. — Whoever visits the iron region of Minnesota is certain to 
pause at Duluth, finely situated on a bay at the end of Lake Supe- 
rior. In i860 it contained only eighty white inhabitants, and had 
less than four thousand in 1885. It owes its rapid increase since to 
the fact of being at the head of navigation of the Great Lakes with 
a rich agricultural and mining region lying beyond. It has a large 
harbor entered by a short canal, and travellers will be interested in 
the ingenious aerial bridge by which teams and people cross the 
canal. The iron country lies about a hundred miles to the north. 
Not many years ago this was a part of a vast forest region where 
the lumber industry was at its height; but many a once lively and 



The Land of Iron 263 

prosperous town that was dependent on this industry is now almost 
depopulated. Sawmills have been abandoned to the elements and 
scores of lumber camps are going to rot and ruin. Moreover, 
where the industry still survives, much timber is greedily accepted 
which a few years ago would have been passed by as worthless. 

One should see the open pits of the Mesabe Range, and visit 
Tower, the pioneer iron town on beautiful Lake Vermilion. At 
Tower you are on the wilderness borders and have an exceptional 
opportunity for getting into the uninhabited forest and exploring 
lonely waterways. Here are Indians who still live in the aboriginal 
wigwams, and get their living largely by hunting and fishing. The 
fishing is excellent, and the hunting better than in most sections so 
easily accessible. Wild rice, which grows best in small shallow 
lakes, is found in considerable quantities in the Lake Vermilion 
region. It is unequalled as an attraction for wild fowl and makes 
the vicinity to an unusual degree the haunt of ducks, geese, and other 
water birds. 



XIII 

WISCONSIN WATERSIDES 

FROM Duluth, "the zenith city of the unsalted 
seas," I made a long journey to Green Bay, a 
westerly inreach of Lake Michigan. On the way 
I spent a good deal of time talking with a resident of a 
certain Wisconsin city of moderate size whose leading 
inhabitants were interested to an unusual degree in the 
lumber industry. Some of them had recently built a 
pulp mill, and he called my attention to the young 
growths of "popple" we could see from the car window 
and remarked: "There's good pulp material in those 
trees, but it's not always easy to get 'em cut. You'll 
strike lots of Catholic lumber-jacks who won't have any- 
thing to do with cutting a popple tree, and they won't 
cross a bridge or sleep in a house that has popple wood 
in it. There's a tradition that the cross on which Christ 
was crucified was of popple, and they say the wood is 
cursed on that account. They call it the ' devil's wood, ' 
and in proof of there being something mysterious about 
it tell you to notice that the leaves never stand still 
whether the wind blows or not. 

"Down in the town where I live there are probably 
forty men who are worth over one hundred thousand 
dollars apiece, and the money has mostly come out of 




^tjTr-r"™~"^,~~"^^";''5y 




my^^ 








The straw stack 



Wisconsin Watersides 265 

the woods. Some of it is theirs honestly, and some 
isn't. Nearly all the men who have become rich in this 
country stole timber in the forests for a great many 
years — vast quantities of it. To explain how they did 
the stealing I must tell you about the land-lookers or 
timber-cruisers. I suppose we have ten residents in our 
town who never have done anything else but look up 
timber for the lumber companies. They've been in 
the South, the West, and the North, and they've been 
to Canada, Mexico, and South America. They get 
about five dollars a day and found. Sometimes they'll 
be gone all summer. Generally, when they return and 
are paid, they go on a drunk. They're not apt to be 
thrifty, and formerly it was seldom that they would 
marry before they were fifty. They were in the woods 
too much, and besides women were too scarce. Twenty 
years ago there were five bachelors here to one 
marriageable woman. 

"A cruiser may go alone or he may have a com- 
panion. I knew of a couple of fellows who were gone 
more than seven months. They poled up the Wis- 
consin River in a canoe carrying a bar'l of flour, a bar'l 
of pork, blankets, a gun, and a -compass. When they 
wanted fresh meat they killed a deer, and they traded 
salt pork and flour to the Indians for fish. They had 
climbing hooks, and they'd put 'em on and go up the 
tall trees and look to see where the bunches of pines 
were. They'd locate the sections the timber was on 
and estimate how much there was in each forty. The 



266 Highways and Byways of the GreatXakes 

result of the trip was that they made millions for the 
people who employed them. These employers would 
buy the land for a dollar and a quarter an acre from the 
government, but they wouldn't buy it all. I've known 
people to go in and buy one forty and cut a hundred of 
'em. But ordinarily they'd buy about one-half and 
trespass the other half. Often they cut off the govern- 
ment land adjoining theirs and saved their own for 
years and realized on the increased value of the timber. 

"The land they bought, after it had been reduced to 
a desolation of brush and stumps, wasn't usually con- 
sidered worth paying taxes on, and most of it went back 
to the counties. Over in Michigan a seventh of the 
entire state is even now on the delinquent tax-list. One 
of our townsmen bought eighty thousand acres of such 
land at ten cents an acre. There was still some timber 
on it, and when that had been cut off he sold the land 
for farms, and it made him a millionaire. As a matter 
of fact there's been more fortunes made in the lumber 
and land business in the last fifteen years than ever 
before. 

"A few of the wealthy men in our town are old woods- 
men — workers who went to the lumber camps and 
drove oxen and cut trees with their own hands; but 
most, at the start, were bright, keen college men who 
came here and went into the real estate business. If 
they had brains and ability they'd get in on deals and 
would speculate in land and perhaps marry the daugh- 
ters of older men who'd already made their fortunes. 



Wisconsin Watersides 267 

But I don't think they enjoy their wealth. I don't 
think most rich people do. They trip up somewhere. 
There's usually a skeleton in the closet. Wealth and 
success often make a man crabbed and cranky, or his 
children don't turn out well, or he has rough tastes 
that don't fit the fine house he builds and the stylish 
life he tries to adopt. Most of the rich men travel and 
buy expensive things, but there's a coarse streak in 'em 
that keeps 'em from getting genuine satisfaction out of 
the refinements of life. Then, too, they are never satis- 
fied with the wealth they already have, but are in a 
constant scramble after more, or in a worry lest some 
of their accumulations should slip away. No, if you 
knew all about their affairs, you wouldn't swap your 
troubles for theirs, even if at the same time you traded 
your poverty for their riches. 

" I want you to notice this place we're passing through 
now. It's the worst town in the United States. See 
that one long row of buildings — there's sixteen of 'em, 
and fourteen are saloons. That's all there is to the 
town. It's just a vice resort for the mine and lumber 
laborers of the region. " 

A number of Indian men, women and children occu- 
pied seats near us. They were dressed as well and in 
as up-to-style a manner as most whites. My com- 
panion said they were Chippewas of the Bad 
River Reservation. "There's six hundred of 'em in 
the tribe," said he, "and they're the richest people on 
earth. They're worth ten thousand dollars apiece, and 



268 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

every individual is paid ten dollars a month by the 
government. That income makes the squaws very 
attractive to the white men, and whites often marry 
into the tribe on just that account. The Indians' 
wealth is simply a matter of luck. When the govern- 
ment put 'em on a reservation some land was selected 
that at the time was no earthly good. There was a lot 
of timber on it, but the trees were too small to be cov- 
eted by the lumber companies. Now, however, that 
timber has grown, and is the finest big tract left in the 
state. The Indians have pretty good houses and are 
doing some farming. 

"That bargain with the Chippewas shows you it 
isn't every land trade here that turns out as those con- 
cerned expect. I'll give you another instance. In the 
southern part of the state an old Scotch Presbyterian 
was running a hotel, and he wanted to sell out. A man 
came along who was willing to swap with him for some 
land up near Lake Superior. The Scotchman showed 
the man the hotel building, but he was careful not to 
take him around to the back because there it was all 
bulging out and ready to fall. He was an awful talker 
— that Scotchman — and very religious; but then, the 
more religion a man has the more likely he is to take 
advantage of you — that's my experience. He was too 
thrifty for his children to live with him. There was no 
doubt about his being religious. He got down his Bible 
and read a chapter night and morning, and he had 
prayers five times a day. His prayers weren't short, 



Wisconsin Watersides 269 

either. He never stopped till he'd prayed for every- 
thing in the world. 

"Well, his hotel was worth about eight hundred 
dollars, but he wanted eight thousand for it. So the 
other man put the price up on his land from ten to twelve 
dollars and a half an acre in order to be on the safe side, 
and the swap was made. They swapped in the fall and 
the Scotchman reserved the privilege of keeping on at 
the hotel till spring. During the winter he cut off a 
nice orchard of apple trees that was on the place and 
burned the wood in his stove. But the other fellow 
got even with him, for he'd sold him some of the worst 
land in the state. It's on a kind of drainage ridge, and 
is so dry and sandy and poorly timbered they call it 
the * Barrens.' The old Scotchman is living up there 
now. " 

It was a relief to get out of the fire-scorched north 
into the serene and pastoral country around Green Bay. 
Here the forest period was long enough past so that the 
scarred landscape left by lumbermen and fires had 
healed, and the cut-oflF land had been chastened by the 
plough into productive smoothness. Yet trees were 
not lacking, and they were often good-sized and hand- 
some, though only found scatteringly or in small groves. 
When I left the train I went for a ramble along the 
southern shore of the bay. The farmers were driving 
to town on the wide dusty roads with loads of produce, 
or they were mowing their rowen, or gathering golden 
pumpkins among the cornshocks, and in one or two 



270 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

fields husking had begun. By and by I came to a 
country village. It was a mere handful of buildings at 
a crossroads on a hill. A little Catholic church stood on 
one corner with a garden beside it where the priest was 
pottering around, and there was a saloon on each of 
two other corners. The remaining corner was occupied 
by a blacksmith's shop. The blacksmith did not happen 
to be especially busy, and I loitered at the door of his 
shop while he commented on some of the characteristics 
of the region, past and present, starting with some 
observations on the local weather. 

"Last May," said he, "on the 9th day of the month, 
we had pretty near a foot of snow. But that didn't do 
any harm except to make a mess of the roads. Later, 
when everything was coming along finely, and we were 
having nice warm days, and the trees had blossomed, 
there was a turn of the wind, it grew cold, and we had a 
frost that spoiled all our chances for fruit this year. 
Often it's just as bad at the other end of the season. 
I've seen it freeze everything so hard on the 2d of 
September that the vegetables and things were all 
killed, and the leaves fell off" the trees. 

"After that May frost it got hot and dry so blame 
sudden and kept hot and dry so long that nothing we 
planted would grow. But we got the crops started 
somehow after a while, and we've never raised any 
better corn. We can't brag of the other crops. One 
day a neighbor wanted me to come and see the potatoes 
in his garden. They were early ones that had been ripe 



Wisconsin Watersides 271 

for some time, but he hadn't dug 'em, and he said they 
were sprouting and coming up. I laughed at him and 
wouldn't believe such a thing was possible till I went 
and looked over his fence. He was right. The green 
sprouts were coming up like clover all over the potato 
hills. There'd been a heavy rain following a long dry 
spell, and that had started them, but it's something I 
never had heard of before. 

"This used to be a French Canadian settlement, 
but timber is the main holt of the French, and they 
follow it. Their boys would go off to the lumber dis- 
tricts to work, and in the end the old folks would sell 
their property for nothing at all and go to live with the 
children. The Hollanders are getting most of the land 
now. If a farm is sold you can pretty near tell before- 
hand that a Hollander will buy it. They're a good deal 
better farmers than the French were. Well, sir, I 
believe a Hollander can live and make money where 
people of any other nation would starve, and they ain't 
slow in spending a quarter either. It's simply that they 
get more out of the land. Some of 'em prosper on five 
acres, and if you strike a man who's got a hundred acres 
he's considered a good big farmer. I suppose fifty 
acres is about the average here. The Hollanders are 
probably more economical in their food than the 
Americans are, and one man was telling me they e't 
food he didn't consider fit for his hogs, but that's 
exaggerating. 

"They're great church-goers, and so are the Protes- 



272 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

tants. Out three miles from here there's quite a bunch 
of Protestants, and they've got a church there. I attend 
that church myself, and every time I go I meet pretty 
near all of 'em. The church here draws its congregation 
from a territory about eight miles square, and whenever 
there's a service at the church these Hollanders are on 
hand, rain or shine. I've got a barn that's usually 
empty and so has my next neighbor, and in case the 
weather is not nice those barns are full of teams. It's 
a matter of accommodation, but most all the men are 
customers at my shop." 

While we were talking three small children of the 
blacksmith's ran past us. He stopped them. "Where 
are you going, you fellows.^" he asked. 

They had got hold of a penny somewhere, and ex- 
plained that they were on their way to the store to 
spend it. "Well, go on quick, or I'll cut your ears off," 
said their father in a gentle and affectionate voice that 
belied the fierceness of his words. 

"Forty years ago," said he, turning to me, "there 
were no sawmills around here, and the settlers lived 
in log cabins. You wouldn't find any man with more 
than five or six acres cultivated. Some of the 
people were pretty rough and wild, and there are fel- 
lows here yet that you wouldn't want to go to and tell 
just what you think of them. My folks came from 
Belgium, and for a few years they maybe fared a little 
harder than they had in the old country. They didn't 
starve, but that's about all they missed in the way of 




The workers 



Wisconsin Watersides 273 

hardship. Them first settlers had a tough time. I 
don't believe we could live with no more than they used 
to have. At our home whenever we had meat, which 
wasn't oftener than once a month, we considered we 
were having a feast. We never kept a pig and wouldn't 
eat pork because my folks were Seventh Day Adventists 
and didn't believe in pork. We didn't have anything 
sweet — that is, no pie or cake, and I'm blame sure we 
wouldn't buy a pound of sugar in a year. But we had 
maple syrup. 

"My mother died when I was a kid, and my grand- 
mother had to keep me and my brother going. She used 
to fry some butter with the vegetables, and that did 
in place of meat. We often had vegetable soup, and we 
ate corn mush and Johnny cake and wheat bread. 
Coffee in them times was something that was pretty 
scarce. Some people would make a substitute out of 
brown bread crusts. Others would take barley and 
toast it and grind it, and still others used peas treated 
the same as the barley. You might have to go to a 
dozen houses before you'd get a cup of real coffee. My 
grandmother was very saving. Nothing that was good 
for food went to waste, and I don't know of anyone 
who could put things together so nice. She brought all 
sorts of seeds from the old country, and it was she who 
kept the garden. She had the pride of the village so 
far as a garden was concerned. It was right by the 
cabin near the road, and I remember people saying as 
they passed what a nice garden it was. We had lots of 



274 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

different vegetables to eat. Yes, sir, my grandmother 
was a great old woman for vegetables, and she'd prepare 
'em so they'd taste fine, but I might not like 'em now. 

"We were Adventists and we kept Saturday for the 
Sabbath. My father does yet. That is all right on the 
farm, but when I got out in the world I couldn't strike 
no steady job and lay off Saturday. Even in this busi- 
ness, with a shop of my own, I couldn't do it. 

"The Sabbath began at sundown Friday. You 
must think we didn't like that very well when we were 
small, but our folks gave us a little more free privileges 
than most Adventist boys had. There were eight or 
nine other families of that faith in the neighborhood. 
At first they had their meetings at the houses, one 
week at one house, and the next week at another house, 
but later they built a church. An uncle of mine was 
supposed to be the leader, and he preached usually. 
Once in a while a missionary would come and preach, 
and sometimes we'd have kind of a debate, and every- 
body would have a chance to reason and discuss the 
Word and tell what they thought of it. 

"Those Saturday Adventists used to tithe their 
income, but I don't know as they do that any more. 
It's some twenty-five or thirty years ago that I'm 
talking about. Then, if they sold some produce, they'd 
turn over to the church a tenth part of what they re- 
ceived for it. I knew one family that wouldn't eat an 
egg unless it was marked down so the church would be 
sure to get a proper proportion. There's no other reli- 



Wisconsin Watersides 275 

glon where they sacrifice so much. Oh, I tell you they Ve 
the most sincere Christians there is in their beliefs. 
As I recall them, they were a little society, you might 
say, that was just trying to be brothers and show light 
to the world. You take an Adventist that you owe 
money, if you go to him with it on Saturday he won't 
take it. They avoid all business and work on that day. 
Some don't even cook their meals on Saturday, but 
prepare the food the day before and eat it cold. That's 
too strict for me. They were absolutely temperance, 
and they wouldn't touch tobacco, and they wouldn't 
believe in dances or no game of no kind. 

"Three different times was set by Advent leaders for 
the world to come to an end, and there was considerable 
excitement getting ready, and on the last day or two 
some would stay without eating and spend their time 
praying. I can't say just how sure they were that the 
end was coming; but I remember a funny thing — my 
uncle, one of those times when the world was coming to 
an end, sold his farm. The end was expected in two 
years, and yet he gave the fellow seven years to com- 
plete his payments for the place. I don't think he 
believed very strong in the world's coming to an end, 
or he wouldn't have been willing to wait till five years 
after the end for his pay." 

From the village hilltop I could see the hazy blue 
waters of the bay beyond the intervening farmlands, 
and a strip of wooded shore. This bay was visited in 
September, 1679, by La Salle, who put in here with 



276 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

his little fifty ton vessel, the Griffon, the first vessel 
that ever sailed on the Great Lakes. The Indians 
were vastly surprised to see a ship in their country. 
To them the vessel was a great curiosity, and scores of 
canoes would at times gather around her while the 
savages stared at and admired the "fine wooden canoe" 
as they called it. 

Here La Salle collected a cargo of furs with which 
he dispatched the Griffon to Niagara, while he with a 
part of his men embarked in four canoes to proceed on 
an exploring expedition southward. Hardly had the 
canoes and the Griffon parted company when a sudden 
autumn storm swept across the lake. While the waves 
threateningly assailed the canoes, darkness fell, and it 
was only by constant shouting that the men kept their 
boats together and got to shore. For four days the 
storm raged with unabated fury, and La Salle and his 
companions waited in their cheerless encampment, 
living on pumpkins and maize presented by a friendly 
Indian chief, and the meat of a single porcupine they 
killed. 

As to the Griffon, that was never heard of again, and 
to this day none can tell whether the ill-fated bark was 
swallowed in the depths of the lake, destroyed by 
Indians, or made the prize of traitors. 

La Salle did not turn back, but when the lake grew 
calm continued his journey along the Wisconsin shore. 
Other storms delayed him, and the party spent wretched 
days and nights among the rocks and bushes crouched 




The harvest 



Wisconsin Watersides 277 

around driftwood fires with nothing to shelter them 
from snow and rain but their blankets. Often steep 
high bluffs fronted the water so it was difficult to find a 
landing-place; and when they did land they not infre- 
quently were compelled to drag their canoes to the top 
of the bluffs, lest by leaving them exposed all night to 
the waves they should be dashed to pieces. When they 
reembarked in the morning it would perhaps be neces- 
sary that two men should go into the water waist deep 
to steady each canoe until it was loaded. There con- 
tinued to be lack of food, and the men paddled from 
morning till night with nothing to eat but a handful of 
Indian corn, and some hawthorn berries which they 
picked on the shore and devoured so ravenously they 
were made ill. Exhaustion and famine stared them in 
the face until one morning as they were paddling along 
in the vicinity of what is now Milwaukee they saw 
numerous ravens and eagles hovering over something 
on the land. They paddled to the shore and found the 
body of a deer which had been killed by a wolf. This 
was a beginning of better things, though they con- 
tinued to experience not a little of uncertainty and 
privation. Indeed, La Salle and all the other early 
voyagers of the lakes and explorers of the adjacent 
wilderness were doomed to almost constant discomfort 
and peril. 

From Green Bay I went up the Fox River, a stream 
wild in name and formerly abounding in rapids and 
waterfalls, but now it is a succession of ponds held back 



278 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

by dams, and at every dam is a populous manufacturing 
town. It is the outlet of Lake Winnebago, a rather 
charming sheet of water rimmed about with low blue 
hills. I stopped at a lakeside town and went for a walk 
among the farmlands. It was a pleasant, prosperous- 
looking region, with scattered, park-like groves of well- 
grown elms, oaks, and hickories, in whose grassy shade 
the sleek cattle were feeding. Among other attractions 
I saw a really delightful country schoolhouse. The 
surroundings of most such buildings are barren and 
forbidding, and their appearance is suggestive of the 
mechanical grind of an education factory. But here was 
a tidy white structure in an ample yard where grew a 
number of stalwart oaks, and back of it was a thick 
Wood. I could not help fancying that the rugged tree- 
trunks and vigorous boughs, the whispering leaves and 
dappled shadows must have a beneficent influence on 
those who attended school here; yet I have to confess 
that when the children were let loose for recess, while I 
was lingering on the borders of the yard, they were 
about as noisy and self-consciously rude in their at- 
tempts at smartness as the average. I asked them if 
they played in the woods, and they said they used to, 
but the teacher had forbidden it because they went on 
through to an orchard and stole apples. There were 
thirty children, and they all brought their dinners. 
Some lived near by, but they preferred the fun of eating 
with their mates. Across the road was a sober, un- 
painted building in which the children said the people 



Wisconsin Watersides 279 

of the neighborhood had grange meetings, dances, 
and Sunday-schools. Not a tree softened its angular 
forlornness, and I wondered if its sorry aspect did not 
dull the pleasure of the merrymakings, and make 
sombre the religion taught there. 

In my further rambles around the region I made 
various acquaintances, among whom I recall with most 
interest a Polish farmer. With his stubbly beard and 
corncob pipe and rusty clothing he was not at first 
glance by any means prepossessing, but I liked his 
self-confidence, and his alert, keen-eyed vigor. He had 
made a success in life with his own hands and was 
proud of the fact. Twenty-two years ago he came to 
this country and married. He had nothing, and his 
wife had nothing. Now he owns his place clear of debt, 
and has money in the bank. He had paid four hundred 
dollars an acre for six and a half acres — a price that 
included a small house and barn in rather poor repair. 
Both land and buildings had been improved, and the 
farm was worth decidedly more than his investment. 
He raised small fruits, and drove around the country 
buying chickens, ducks, geese, sheep and other crea- 
tures which he fatted and sold. His use of English was 
somewhat awkward, with reference to which defect he 
apologetically observed that it was "hard to teach an 
old dog new tricks, " but that his children were learning 
the language all right. A good many recent comers 
from Europe were acquiring land in the vicinity, he 
said, and were buying out the old settlers. The latter 



28o Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

often were not thrifty, did not want to work very 
hard, and were extravagant in spending. There were 
so many things they wanted that they let the money 
slip away from them and so eventually lost their farms. 

Later, when I returned to the town I chatted about 
farm conditions with one of the merchants. "As a 
rule," said he, "the land around here gives good returns. 
Some of the farmers have more money than they know 
what to do with. Their houses are generally trim and 
comfortable, their barns large and substantial, their 
fields clean and productive. A man with a good farm 
near town has no excuse for not making money. I 
know a market gardener with five acres who clears three 
thousand dollars a year. I'll tell you what he done 
this morning. He brought in a load and went around 
to the hotels and restaurants, and he'd sold out in a 
little while, and that load brought him between forty 
and forty-five dollars. We had such a long dry spell 
in the early summer that I thought his cabbages would 
never grow any heads. They were little bits of wea- 
zened up things, but we got a good rain just in time to 
save 'em. Yes, before that rain the country got to be 
very brown and scorched, and the cattle looked lean 
and hungry. You wouldn't see 'em scattered about the 
pastures eating, but they'd be standing under the trees 
and in some pool or crick if they could find any that 
hadn't gone dry. But the rain seemed to give us spring 
again; the lawns were soon just like green velvet, and 




A schoolhouse 



Wisconsin Watersides 281 

the green came back to the fields and pastures. So the 
farmers have had about an average good year. 

"Some of 'em are buying automobiles, but take the 
farmers as a whole, and they certainly don't have any 
affection for autos owned by townsmen. If a farmer is 
driving along the road he will never get out of the way 
of an auto that is coming behind him until it is right up 
close and the fellow has pumped his horn for a while. 
Sometimes he won't budge even then. One man here 
in town was out on a stretch of lonely, rough country 
road with his auto, and there was a load of hay in front 
of him. He couldn't get the hay man to turn out, and 
after a little palaver decided to back. But he found a 
fellow behind him with a load of potatoes, and the 
potato man wouldn't turn out any more than the hay 
man. The fellow in the auto wasn't inclined to go on 
at that snail's pace forever, and he tried to pass the load 
of hay. The result was he got ditched and had to pay 
the potato man five dollars to pull him out. But the 
next day he had those two farmers appear in court and 
they was fined twenty dollars each and costs. You see 
they hadn't given him a fair show. 

"Of course, it often happens that the farmers' horses 
are frightened by the autos, and yet if there's an acci- 
dent the man running the auto will usually stop and 
settle for the damages. Still, the farmers feel pretty 
sore. Sometimes the automobile folks raid the farmers' 
crops. Right here in today's paper it tells about a 



282 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Chicago woman who was arrested for that sort of per- 
formance. Let me read you her excuse: 

" 'The motor parties get out in the country, and the 
things smell fresh and good, and they simply hop over a 
fence and provide themselves with what they want. 
That's not stealing. It's hooking, swiping. We took 
a few vegetables — about two cents' worth, and a few 
eggs. We built a fire and fried some of the eggs, because 
we were hungry, and the rest we threw at horses and 
people passing on the road. It was a joy ride, and we 
were out for all the fun we could have. ' 

"You can't blame the farmers for feeling kind of 
irritated. Sometimes they attempt to get even by 
burying a piece of iron pipe in the roadway dust. The 
auto strikes it and gets an awful bounce, and perhaps 
breaks some springs. Another trick is to set up nails 
in the dirt of the wheeltracks to puncture the auto 
tires. You might think the farmers would be afraid 
the nails would get in their horses' feet, but a horse 
doesn't put his feet down from above but gives 'em a 
slide that would bend the nails down. 

"Oh, the owner of an auto has trouble all the time! 
There's constant breaks and expense, and in two years' 
time so many improvements have been made in the 
machine that his is out-of-date, and he wants a new 
one. " 



Note. — To see Wisconsin in a pleasant and attractively varied 
aspect visit the shores of Green Bay, the busy manufacturing villages 



Wisconsin Watersides 283 

along the Fox River, and the thirty-mile stretch of Lake Winnebago. 
Here are prosperous towns and fine farming country, and not far 
away is Lake Michigan. The sightseer will not perhaps wish to 
linger long, and I only suggest that the vicinity furnishes a good 
opportunity to get acquainted with a characteristic portion of the 
great state. 



XIV 

AN ILLINOIS VALLEY 

THE settlement of northern Illinois and Wis- 
consin brought on the last serious Indian out- 
break in the lake region. The Indians had been 
pushed farther and farther west by the whites until, on 
the banks of the Mississippi, they made a final des- 
perate stand. Black Hawk was the Indian leader. 
His career had been warlike from early youth, and at 
the age of fifteen the scalping of an enemy had gained 
him the coveted right to paint, to wear feathers, and to 
dance the war-dance. Since that time he had been 
involved in all the tribal skirmishes, and had played a 
prominent part in the contests with the white men. 
During the winter of 1832 he recruited a large force, 
and in the spring began a march up the Rock River 
Valley. This invasion excited great alarm along the 
frontier, and the settlers left their lonely farms and 
gathered in the larger villages which they hastened to 
protect with stockades. That an organized body of 
troops might be put into the field to oppose the Indians, 
the governor called for volunteers, and one of the first 
to enlist was Abraham Lincoln, who was then twenty- 
three years old. The troops promptly started to follow 
Black Hawk up the valley. There were no roads or 




The bluffs on Rock River 



An Illinois Valley - 285 

bridges — only marshy trails, and the streams were 
swollen into torrents by the spring thaws. But the 
hardy backwoodsmen were used to such conditions and 
they marched steadily onward. Twenty-five miles 
above Dixon they overtook the Indians, but it was the 
latter who did the attacking. While the squads of 
soldiers were scattered without any regular order along 
half a mile of valley. Black Hawk and his bodyguard 
of some fifty braves dashed out on them with wild war- 
whoops. The soldiers became panic-stricken, and in 
spite of the efforts of their officers to rally them, the 
flight did not end till they reached Dixon. 

After this the scene of the campaign drifted away 
to the north and west, and eventually the Indians were 
humbled and defeated. 

It was the Black Hawk interest even more than the 
wildly suggestive name of the stream that drew me to 
the Rock River; and one serene, sunshiny day, when 
the landscape was enveloped in silvery haze I walked 
northward from Dixon following the stream. The 
river was sometimes bordered by alluvial meadows 
and sometimes by rugged bluffs with woodland clinging 
to their milder slopes. The oaks were reddening with 
the touch of autumn, the frost had yellowed the corn- 
fields, and the roadside weeds were dead and brown. 
At a turn of the river, where it makes a long loop 
instead of pursuing a straight course, was the village 
of Grand Detour, a very likable little place with a 
grassy common in its midst where some horses were 



286 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

tethered to graze. There were plenty of large trees, 
and most of the buildings had the humanized look that 
comes only with age, and a certain attractive quaint- 
ness impossible in modern and up-to-date structures. 
I stopped at one of the houses for a drink of water and 
found the old oaken bucket still in use. The well curb 
was on a back piazza, and I lowered the bucket by a 
rude wooden windlass. A public well in the street near 
the store used the same crude method of getting the 
water from the cool depths. 

"That's good water," said an elderly man who was 
sitting on the store steps. "It's hard, but I like it. 
Back in Vermont where I come from the water is soft. 
I was there last year on a visit, and after being used 
to our water here, that Vermont water tasted kind 
o' squshy. Seemed as though it needed salting or 
something. My woman thought it was funny to see 
running water in every house there. They all had 
springs on the hillsides and piped the water right 
into the kitchens. 

"This village you're in used to be quite a burg. At 
one time it was bigger'n Chicago. There were a number 
of stores here, several blacksmith's shops, two or three 
hotels, and four saloons and a plough factory, a wagon 
factory, a gristmill, a grain elevator — blamed if 
I know whether there was anything else or not. 
We had the best water-power on the river. This 
would have been the most important town in the valley 
if we hadn't tried to drive too sharp a bargain with the 



An Illinois Valley 287 

railroad. The railroad wanted to come here, but we 
said they must pay handsomely for the privilege. So 
they went to Dixon instead. That killed Grand Detour, 
and it has been dead ever since. The factories moved 
elsewhere, and if a building burnt down it wasn't built 
up, and finally the gristmill quit grinding and some of 
the foundation washed out and it tumbled over. 

"There had been sawmills near here along Pine 
Crick, but they couldn't compete with big mills that 
started elsewhere. Yes, those big mills just eat the 
little ones up. They're squeezin' 'em out all over. So 
here we are — a little country village, and the business 
we were naturally entitled to has all concentrated at 
Dixon. They've got some walloping big cement works 
down there, and lots of other mills and shops. " 

I presently resumed my ramble up the valley with 
its little hills, its cultivated fields and patches of wood- 
land, and its pleasant farmhouses. At frequent inter- 
vals along the river loomed the beautiful cliff's that 
give the stream its name. Once, when I had left the 
road and was tramping beside the river, I met a hunter. 
He had no game and said it had grown very scarce in 
recent years. "There's more back East than there is 
here now," he affirmed. "About all you can find is a 
few squirrels and rabbits. Once in a while you may get 
a duck, but not often, and yet thirty-five or forty years 
ago you could see acres of 'em on the water here. " 

However, the hunter knew of one wild treasure of the 
vicinity still left. That was a cool spring in a bushy 



288 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

hollow, and thither he guided me. After we parted I 
returned to the river. I often saw fish leaping from the 
water, and in the dusk of early evening I came across a 
fisherman going home with a well-filled basket. "These 
are pike, pickerel and bass," he said. "Such fish are 
not easy to ketch any more. Carp have been put in the 
river of late years, and they knock the whey out of the 
other fish. Besides, they're poor eating. I can't 
stomach 'em. They're a darn nuisance." 

But far more important commercially than the fish, 
are the clams that inhabit the river. The clamming 
season, which lasts from April ist to October ist, had 
recently closed and every little while I observed a great 
heap of shells on the bank. I learned something of the 
industry at the hotel in the town where I stopped that 
night. "If a man wants to go clamming," said the 
landlord, "he fixes up a lot of four-pronged wire hooks, 
fastens 'em with short strings to sticks about a dozen 
feet long — perhaps as many as two hundred hooks to 
each stick. He goes out in a little flat-bottomed boat, 
drags down stream, and pulls up his stick and puts it 
on a rack at the side of the boat. Then he takes off the 
clams that have clinched onto the hooks and throws 
'em into the boat. On the shore he has a tank under 
which he builds a fire and heats water to put the clams 
into and make 'em open. As he takes the clams out 
he feels for pearls, throws the shells in a heap, and saves 
the clams to give to farmers to feed their hogs. I tell 
the farmers who use that sort of feed to fat their hogs 




A farmyard family 



An Illinois Valley 289 

that I don't want to buy no pork of 'em, but probably 
it's all right. They feed the hogs corn before they 
market 'em. 

"The clam-opening job is rather odorous, and pearlin' 
don't attract very high grade labor. The pearl gather- 
ers are mostly kind of shiftless — too lazy to do anything 
else, and they only work when they feel like it; but 
pearl hunting is profitable. A man can get shells 
enough in a day to net him four dollars, and there's 
the chance to make a big thing in pearls besides. One 
fellow in this town got a pearl that sold for eighteen 
hundred dollars. I've seen 'em clear as glass, and so 
round that when you put 'em down you could hardly 
keep 'em from roUin'. One was found, in another part 
of the state, this year, that was pink in tint and weighed 
fifty grains and sold for five thousand dollars. I 
wouldn't give five dollars for all there are in this river 
for my own use. 

"When I was a boy I used to go pearlin' in a New 
England river near my home, and I had a whole teacup 
full of pearls at one time. I took 'em to a jeweler's 
store, and he said they wasn't any good. I couldn't 
get a nickel for 'em. " 

In the hotel ofiice was a gambling machine, and a 
travelling man of sporty type was trying his luck at 
it. The cost was five cents a try, and the returns varied 
from nothing to one dollar in trade. The man was very 
persistent. He made occasional small winnings, but 
he kept on whirring the machine, for he would not be 



290 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

satisfied with anything less than a dollar. The other 
persons in the room desisrted from reading and irrelevant 
talk and watched him, ccmmenting from time to time 
on his luck and relating experiences of their own with 
this or other gambling machines. Pretty soon a red- 
nosed fellow with a ragged coat came in. By this time 
the gambler had begun to make remarks more forceful 
than elegant about the machine. "That's right," 
said the new-comer, "stand right up and swear at it. 
Then you'll beat -it. " 

Just then there was a rattle of coins, and the red- 
nosed man stepped eagerly closer. "Oh! you've 
hooked a dollar!" he exclaimed. "What did I tell 
you.?" 

Sure enough, the gambler had attained the goal of 
his ambition, and he went over to the counter and 
got a dollar's worth of cigars. By his roundabout 
method of obtaining them they had probably cost him 
two dollars. Now the red-nosed man began investing 
in the machine, and he, too, was seeking the maximum 
prize and played any lesser winnings back into the 
machine without a pause. All the time he kept up a 
running fire of comments. "My luck seems to have 
stopped short off," he remarked after he had seen half 
a dozen nickels disappear in succession without any 
benefit to him; "but I'm staying right by her. Here," 
said he, motioning to the landlord, "you're a lucky 
slob. Come and turn the handle for me." 

The landlord accommodated him, but the result was 



An Illinois Valley 291 

another blank. "She's all mixed up this morning," 
declared the red-nosed man. "You'd better put her 
out in the back room;" and he departed without mak- 
ing further efforts to get the coveted dollar. 

After he had gone I made some remark to the effect 
that I thought it a pity that a man so evidently poverty- 
stricken should waste his money as he had, but the 
landlord said: "Oh, he's got plenty of money. He's 
one of the clammers, and he won't be contented 
while he has any cash left. It's only nine o'clock 
in the morning now, and he's just starting out to 
enjoy himself. By noon he'll be so drunk he can't 
stand up." 

One evening during my stay in the town I got 
acquainted with an old farmer who was looking into 
the show window of a store. He was a loiterer getting 
what entertainment he could out of the sights on the 
street and he seemed entirely willing to linger there 
and elucidate his opinions of life in the region. 

"We've been prospered in some ways this year," 
said he, "and in some ways we ain't. We had a fair 
first hay crop, but we didn't get no second one at all. 
Another thing that was both bad and good was an 
awful thunderstorm that come about the beginning of 
August. It gave the ground a needed wetting, but four 
barns in the neighborhood where I live was struck by 
lightning and burned. One was right catty-cornered to 
my place. However, the man it belonged to was well- 
off. The loss didn't cripple him any. We've got first- 



292 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

rate returns on what we had to sell. Eggs have been 
bringing a good price right along. They ain't been 
lower than fourteen cents a dozen this summer, and 
butter has brought twenty-five and thirty cents a 
pound. I can remember a time when eggs was a drug 
on the market. You couldn't sell 'em hardly, and felt 
lucky to get six or eight cents. Same with butter. 
You'd take it to town and couldn't get nothing for it. 
I've sold it for ten cents a pound — good butter, too. 
That reminds me of a story. A woman was selling 
butter to a man who was buying it to ship. He was 
smelling and tasting of it, and she says: *You needn't 
be so careful. That's nice, clean butter. I was up all 
night pickin' hairs out of it. ' 

"We're getting higher prices than we used to, but 
seems as though expenses had gone up faster than 
the income. Why, a feller could hire hands once for 
forty cents a day and work 'em all day and half the 
night. By gosh! if a hired man then, workin' out by 
the month, made a hundred dollars in a year, every- 
body was talking about it. Now you've got to pay 
your men thirty dollars a month, and keep a horse for 
'em besides, if they want to drive anywhere; and if 
you get ten hours work a day out of 'em you're doin' 
well. 

"I hired a feller last year, kind of a tramp that came 
along. At first I hesitated, but he urged me to try 
him, and finally I did. I set him to dragging in a field 
some eighty rods long that had been ploughed a few 




Putting in a pane of glass 



An Illinois Valley 293 

days before. At supper time he brought in the horses, 
and just before dark I went to see what sort of work 
he'd been doin'. But when I got to the field — 'Thun- 
der!' I says, 'where's my drag?' I couldn't see it 
anywhere. 'That's funny,' I says. 'Has anyone 
stolen it.^' But I walked down to the far end of the 
field and there it was. I came to the house, and I says 
to the feller, 'What'd you quit way off at that far end 
for.?' 

" 'Why,' he says, 'that's where I was when it got 
to be six o'clock. ' 

"That shows you how particular they are about the 
length of their day, and how little intelligence they 
have. They don't use brains. I had a Dutchman 
workin' for me once, and I told him to clean out the 
hogpen. In order to show him how, I got over into 
the pen and threw out a couple of forkfuls. Then the 
Dutchman threw out two forkfuls and handed back the 
fork. He thought he'd finished his job. You can't 
hire hardly any men among the natives to work on the 
farm. We have to send off to foreign countries. There's 
the same difficulty in securing indoor help. If a man 
is lookin' for a woman he can find one; but if he's after 
a hired girl instead of a wife, no. Hired girls used to 
be plenty at a dollar to a dollar and a half a week. 
Now they're scarce at a dollar a day. 

"The fact of the matter is that the boys and girls 
don't like farming; and yet you'd think it ought to be 
more attractive than ever before. We've all got tele- 



294 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

phones to keep us In touch with neighbors and the 
town, and the work is done with ploughs and other 
machines so rigged that a man don't have to go afoot 
at all. The houses are fitted up pleasant, too, with nice 
furniture and lots of conveniences and things to enjoy. 
One thing you'll find in about every home is a piano. 
We used to all have organs, but an organ is no good 
now — ain't worth ten cents. Besides pianos we've got 
phonographs — oh, yes! we can't keep house without a 
phonograph. But they're gettin' past. They're not so 
much of a curiosity as they was. You get away from 
the towns, though, and the remoter and more lonely 
the farm is the surer you'll be to find a phonograph 
there. 

"Farming, as things are now, has a whole lot of 
advantages, and yet the country fellers, just as soon 
as they get big enough, strike for town. Most likely 
they get a job in some factory. They work in it a while 
and go to another factory, and so on around, and that's 
the way they spend their lives. A man who starts in 
doing day's work in town never gets money ahead. 

"The girls are as anxious as the boys to leave the 
farm. They don't know anything about cooking, and 
don't want to know anything about it either. I heard a 
girl saying the other day that she'd only marry on 
condition that her mother went along to live with her 
and do the cooking. She said she could make cofi'ee 
and get a lunch, and could arrange furniture nice in a 
room, but that was all. Well, sir, things are getting to 



An Illinois Valley 295 

be a fright. Lots of young women on our farms don't 
know how to make butter. Their fathers run the milk 
through a separator, take the cream to a creamery and 
buy the butter the family uses. The daughters do 
nothin' but set around, and their main ambition is to 
marry some man who'll take care of 'em. 

"We Americans want all the time to work less and 
spend more, but you take the Germans, and they're 
different. The whole family works, and they stay on 
the land; and yet about the third generation they're as 
bad as the natives, and would rather starve in the 
town than live in plenty on a farm. The boys in the 
old families — them that do want to farm — go West 
where the land is cheaper. The rent is too high here. 
A man has got to scratch to pay five dollars an acre 
rental, and that's the charge on ordinary land in this 
region. 

"Speakin' about expenses, it's gettin' so the farmers 
are buyin' automobiles right along. Of course, some of 
the old fellers are pretty well heeled, and it's all right 
for them, but for others it's extravagance. A neighbor 
of mine has just bought one. He's a renter who pays 
fifteen hundred dollars a year for his place. I wouldn't 
think he could afford an auto. But perhaps he can. 
He had an awful drove of hogs there this summer. 

"Another recent auto buyer ain't one and twenty 
yet. He's inherited money, but he's not overly bright. 
He used to keep a horse for driving purposes, and he 
was complaining to me one day because it cost so much 



296 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

to feed the animal. 'Why don't you turn your horse 
out to pasture?' I says. 

""Twould fade out his color/ he says, 'and I'm 
too proud to drive a sunburnt horse. ' 

"Some men are bound to have an auto even if they 
have to mortgage their farms to get one — they do that 
every day in the week. At this time of the year they're 
realizing on their crops and stock, and they feel a little 
better off than they really are, but a good many will 
get pinched by spring, and their autos will be on the 
market for sale cheap. 

"It ain't every man that's fit to have an auto. 
There's a manufacturer in this town who runs his 
machine when he's fairly loony with drink, and he 
runs it fast, too. I'm expecting any time to hear that 
his auto has run ag'in' a house or climbed a tree. Fast 
riding is one of the failings of the autoists, and they 
won't give a team any more of the road than they have 
to. A relative of mine was out one night in an open 
buggy, and an auto come along with no lights. It 
tore up his buggy and knocked him out and went on 
without stopping to find out whether he needed help 
or was killed. He never could find out who the auto- 
mobile man was so as to have him pulled and fined. 
The only way to do is to carry a gun. Some of the men 
running around in automobiles need a lesson, and they 
need it bad. 

"But I'll say this — if a horse is frightened at auto- 
mobiles his place is on the plough, or he ought to be 




Getting the mail 



An Illinois Valley 297 

sold and shipped to Chicago. A horse that's drove In a 
big city soon learns that the autos ain't goin' to hurt 
him; and in time the horses'll get used to 'em here. 
A few years ago our horses were scairter at bicycles than 
they are at autos now. But If a man has got a plug he 
can always sell it. There's Jews go around buyin' up 
horses that ain't wanted on the farms and payin' all 
the way from twenty-five to three hundred dollars for 
'em. Good horses find a ready sale, too, and if you've 
got a nice team people are lookin' 'em over and chasin' 
after 'em all the time." 

We would have talked longer, but just then the 
store lights were turned out and we were left In gloom 
on the sidewalk. In parting, my companion said: 
"I've been in twenty-four states, and after all I've seen 
elsewhere I think this is pretty good country right here. 
I'm satisfied. with Illinois, and I'm satisfied with the 
Rock River Valley. But I was born and raised In a 
town myself, and I get lonesome on a farm. So I'm 
goin' to sell out and move to the village. " 

My final day in the region was spent for the most part 
in another farmland ramble, this time well back from 
the river. The wayside dwellings were large and stood 
at some distance from the public road, with generous 
barns and a medley of sheds and machines and straw 
stacks beyond them. Usually there was a windmill to 
supply water for the barn and also what was used in the 
house for cooking and drinking purposes. But near 
the kitchen door was an ordinary pump connected 



298 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

with a cistern that caught the drainage from the roofs 
and supplied soft water for washing. The house was 
pretty sure to have shade trees about it, and often 
there was a small fruit orchard between it and the road. 
Every main highway was evidently a Rural Delivery 
route, and there were mail boxes on posts by the way- 
side wherever a byroad branched away, or a lane led 
to a farmhouse. 

The autumn was well advanced, but as yet there had 
not been a severe freeze, and the drone of insects filled 
the air. From fences and wayside trees extended many 
a cobweb streamer, and I was continually catching 
them on my clothing or on my face, and sometimes I 
gathered in a spider aeronauting on his filmy thread. 
Once I saw a flight of perhaps half a hundred wild 
geese cleaving the sky southward, honking and hasty. 
The wind rustled over the many-acred cornfields. 
When I looked down on these cornfields from a hilltop 
they often spread about on all sides like a billowy 
yellow ocean. 

"Lots and lots of our corn won't be cut," said a 
farmer whom I had accosted where he was digging 
potatoes in a jungle of weeds assisted by a young fellow 
and a small boy. "The price of hay rules that a good 
deal. If hay is scarce we house more corn fodder; but 
most of the corn is husked from the standing stalks, 
and then we turn in the cattle. The cattle are out 
browsing around in the cornfields every day all winter. 
It don't make no difference how cold it is. We turn 



An Illinois Valley 299 

'em out even if the thermometer is below zero, unless 
the wind blows too much, yes, you bet! But last winter 
we had an extra amount of snow. It come early in 
December and stayed into March. You notice that in 
the hollows there are deep, steep-sided, dry ravines 
torn out by the water in the spring and after heavy 
rains. Those got filled with snow last winter, and there 
was danger the cows and steers would flounder into 'em 
and not be able to get out. So we fed our stock in the 
barns. Generally they eat considerable of that field 
fodder. But that's according to how hungry you keep 
'em. At most I don't s'pose they get more'n a quarter 
of it. However, they trample down what they don't 
eat so we can go over it with a disc harrow and cut up 
the stalks enough to plough under. You'll see some 
good-sized fields of corn here — thirty, forty and even 
fifty acres." 

It was very warm in the clear sunshine on the dusty 
road, and when I was on my way back to town in the 
afternoon I was glad to be asked to ride by a butcher 
who overtook me with his cart. It was a rather primi- 
tive two-horse vehicle, its sides shut in by black cur- 
tains, and having a rude box at the rear that contained 
the meat. One horse was white, the other brown. 
They jogged soberly along carrying their heads level 
with their backs. The driver was smoking his pipe. 
At his feet was a stout handbell he used to summon 
his customers to the roadside, but he had made the last 
call on his route and we went on without stopping. 



300 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"It's hot today," he observed, "but this is nothing 
compared with summer. The thermometer goes up 
over a hundred sometimes, and you get wringin' wet 
with sweat, just walkin'. But Fm out with my cart 
four days a week no matter what the weather is, and 
each of those days I cover about thirty-five miles. I 
have to be up getting ready at half-past two, and I 
start at four. That's workin' for a livin'; but if I didn't 
cover these routes someone else would. There are two, 
and I go over 'em twice each week. 

"This is a nice town where my shop is, or it was until 
this year. It voted license at the last election, and now 
the place has six saloons, and they pay a thousand 
dollars license apiece. That means a big lot of money 
is spent to support 'em. It's astonishing how many 
deads there are since the saloons opened up. One 
doctor had four cases of delirium tremens at the same 
time. Money was much easier under no-license, and 
it was no trouble to collect your bills. You rarely saw a 
drunken man. There was no saloons, and so the fellows 
didn't see liquor, and thought nothing about it and 
didn't know they wanted it. What liquor was drank 
had to be sneaked in, and much as a dozen bootleggers 
was arrested. There never was a town yet that license 
benefited. I don't mind a fellow's takin' a drink of 
beer or whiskey now and then, but when he stands up 
at the bar and drinks more'n he would of water there's 
something wrong. " 

We presently reached town and I found a game of 



An Illinois Valley 301 

quoits in progress near the railroad station. The 
players and onlookers were mostly a lot of ancients with 
various antique trims of whiskers. There were trees 
and sheds that afforded shade, and the sheds added a 
touch of lively color to the scene, for they were be- 
dizened with circus posters. Some boxes and blocks 
and a board propped up on stones furnished seats. 
The majority of the onlookers sat silent but interested, 
and most of the commenting was done by a fat man who 
fairly bubbled over with excitement and enthusiasm. 
Here are some fragments that indicate the tenor of 
his remarks: 

"Ah! that's a good one! but don't you laugh before 
you're through. Now that there you can slop off. 
'Tain't much use if you have a slide. It was too hard — • 
that last one. They both count now — and now they 
don't. Five to three! There, you've got a ringer; don't 
hit it. That was a sticker. That's the kind! If 
you don't laugh I will for you. Now you're just 
even — ten apiece. Well, this is a pretty close game, 
aw, yes ! You ought to go out now. If you pitch close 
enough, you can; but that won't do. Well, sir, I 
don't know whether it will or not, by jingoes!" 

And when I went away on my train several of the 
men were stooping intent around the quoits while one 
of them with a little stick measured the distance of 
two opposing quoits that were so equally near the pin it 
was doubtful which would count. 



302 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

Note. — The Rock River is notably charming, with its magnifi- 
cent bordering cliffs and patches of woodland intermitting with 
pastures and cultivated fields. Perhaps it can nowhere be seen to 
better advantage than in the dozen miles above Dixon. The pictur- 
esque clam industry adds to the attraction of the stream, and there 
is much of interest in the village and farmlife; and besides there is 
the historic interest that comes from the fighting that occurred here 
in the Black Hawk War. 






XV 

TIPPECANOE 

I wanted to see the Tippecanoe battlefield, partly 
because of the fame of the battle, partly because 
the euphonious name appealed to my fancy and was 
suggestive of many varied charms. The battle occurred 
seven miles north of the present city of La Fayette in 
Indiana. It was possible to go to the spot from La 
Fayette by steam cars or trolley, but I preferred to 
walk. The road took me along the banks of the Wabash 
and at first was uninterestingly suburban. Presently, 
however, I came to a beautiful piece of woodland, 
which seemed to be a genuine fragment of the ancient 
forest that used to cover all the northeastern portion 
of our country, but, alas! it was being cut off. I could 
hear the choppers' axes, the voices of men who with 
their teams were dragging out the logs; and there, 
beside the road, was an engine and a saw. Nature's 
temple was being converted into ugly piles of boards 
and beams. 

On a knoll among the trees a tent had been erected, 
and here most of the workers would live all winter. 
A stovepipe elbowed out at one end of the tent, and as I 
was looking around in its vicinity a woman who served 
as cook came out to get some wood for the fire. The 



304 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

twinkle of a birdsong of more than ordinary sweetness 
had just come to my ears^ and I asked the woman if 
she knew what bird it was I heard. 

"It's a redbird," she replied. "A few stay here the 
year round, but they're most plenty in spring. There's 
a good many birds and little animals in these woods. 
A fox squirrel and a gray squirrel live in that big oak 
just down the hill. They play there and bark at us. 
There's lots of hollers in the trees on this track of land 
for the squirrels to build in. We often see rabbits, and 
now and then one of the men'll slip out and kill a part- 
ridge. This is the last fine timber left in the region. 
It's a beautiful scenery, I think." 

I went on up into the woods to where a squad of men 
were at work, some felling trees and chopping off the 
branches, some sawing the trunks into logs, or, if the 
trees were small, sawing off short lengths that could be 
shaped with a broadaxe into railroad ties. Two little 
girls, daughters of the cook, were there watching the 
men and sometimes helping saw. As yet, not much of 
the forest had been destroyed, and some of the smaller 
trees were being left with the idea that the deforested 
tract might sell for building lots at a higher price if a 
little of its vernal character was retained. So the aspect 
of the half devastated woodland with its scattered 
workers was idyllic rather than otherwise. 

When I returned to the road beside the Wabash I 
went on northward, and my next pause was to speak 
with three men who were repairing the telephone line. 




Hewing out railroad ties 



i 



Tippecanoe 305 

I asked them about the battlefield, and one of them 
said: *^If you're interested in that old fight, you want 
to see the Prophet's Rock. You'll find it in the woods 
right by the road two miles above here. It's a pretty 
good-sized chunk, and juts out of the hillside like a 
shelf. Everybody goes to see that, and those who have 
cameras and are jerkin' pictures never fail to jerk the 
shadow of the Prophet's Rock. 

"My grandfather was one of the first settlers at 
Battleground — that's what they call the village which 
is close by where the fighting took place. He and 
Uncle 'Rastus Barnes and a few others come here about 
the same time in 1832. I've heard him say he could go 
out from his house half a mile in any direction and be 
sure to see deer. It was the Indian custom to let fires 
run through the woods every fall to keep down the 
underbrush and give the deer good grazing. So there 
was nothing but big timber, like a grove, and he had to 
go two miles to find a stick small enough for a sled 
tongue. Those early comers might have got much 
better land by settling on the prairies, but they were 
used to being in a timber country where there were 
springs, and to settle on the prairie would have seemed 
to them like going out of the world. " 

I soon left the telephone men at their work, and 
about an hour later I arrived at Battleground. The 
place is a snug little trading center with a group of 
stores that have in front of them lines of posts connected 
by chains or iron rods for the convenient hitching of 



3o6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

the teams of country customers. There were a number 
of right-angled streets bordered by excellent cement 
walks. The dwellings were only slightly back from 
these walks and elbowed each other quite closely. They 
were tree-shadowed and very tidy with lawns at the 
front and gardens behind. Few of them aspired to a 
height of more than a story and a half, and only the 
mildest attempts at architectural adornment were in 
evidence, and these seldom successful. Indeed, the 
lack of ostentation was one of the charms of the place. 
There was no rivalry to outdo each other in the home 
buildings. Here, it would seem, was a village where 
the people found happiness in simple pleasures, and 
where comfort and contentment were universal. 

Immediately south of the village is a grove, stoutly 
fenced about, and containing a slender, graceful memo- 
rial shaft of granite that towers above the treetops. 
The grove occupies a tongue of land that is a continua- 
tion of the village plateau, and that has a considerable 
extent of low ground on three sides of it. Here the 
battle was fought on November 7, 181 1. 

The territory of Indiana, with a population not ex- 
ceeding six thousand, and at that time only ten years 
old, had been suffering much from the incursion of the 
savage warriors on the scattered white settlements. 
In August, Governor William Henry Harrison called 
for troops to get together to punish the Indians, and 
they assembled to the number of about a thousand at 
what is now Terre Haute. Some of the men were 



Tippecanoe 307 

United States Infantry, and a few came from Kentucky, 
but two-thirds were militia of the territory. On the 
high west bank of the Wabash, near where it is joined 
by the Tippecanoe, several hundred Indians had gath- 
ered under the leadership of the famous Tecumseh and 
his brother. The latter had assumed the functions of a 
prophet, and the camp was called "The Prophet's 
Town. " 

Against this town General Harrison moved, and on 
the evening of November 6th he arrived in sight of it. 
Tecumseh had gone south to stir up and bring other 
Indians to assist against the whites, and his brother 
who was in sole charge, sent a messenger to meet the 
invaders. This messenger carried a white flag on a pole. 
When he was brought before General Harrison he said: 
"Why do you come here with your army? We have in 
our town none but women and children. Go into 
camp, and we will treat with you on the morrow. " 

He seems to have been believed; none of the army 
expected a battle, and the Kentuckians grumbled and 
swore because the prophet was so peaceful. They 
built their campfires on the narrow end of the plateau, 
and the Indians standing on a ridge a quarter mile to 
the west counted the fires and knew the exact location 
of all parts of the army. At four in the morning a 
drizzling rain had begun to fall, when a picket saw a 
suspicious movement in the grass and weeds in front of 
him, and he fired his musket. It had been the Indian 
purpose to shoot the pickets with their silent arrows 



3o8 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

and then rush forward with tomahawk and scalping- 
knife on the slumbering army. Fortunately the troops 
had been ordered to sleep in line of battle with their 
weapons attheirsides, and when the report of the sentry's 
gun rang through the camp they were quickly on their 
feet standing shoulder to shoulder. The savages made 
their rush, and the awful Indian yell resounded on all 
sides of the encampment, but they found the whites 
prepared. They were repelled and continued the 
assault from behind trees and from among the branches, 
some with bows and arrows, some with powder and 
ball. Several times they attempted another charge 
with frantic shrieks and screams, but each time were 
driven back in confusion. 

Meanwhile the prophet had gone off across a swampy 
level beyond harm's reach, and standing on the rock 
that projected from the ridge was working his charms 
and praying for victory. He had assured his followers 
that the Great Spirit would change the whites' powder 
into ashes and sand; but daylight came and the whites 
still held their ground. Then they made a bayonet 
charge, and the disheartened Indians fled across the 
swamp. Thirty-seven of the whites had been killed 
and one hundred and fifty-one wounded. An Indian 
woman who was captured later said that one hundred 
and ninety-seven of the Indian warriors were missing. 

Harrison had won, yet his position was critical. He 
had very little flour, and no meat; for the few cattle 
he had brought along had been either driven off by the 





Saturday afternoon in town 



Tippecanoe 309 

Indians or had been stampeded by the noise of the 
battle. What saved him was the fact that the Indians 
made no attempt to harrass him. They had abandoned 
their village near the mouth of the Tippecanoe, two 
miles northeast of the battlefield, and had gone from 
the region in a panic. On the day after the engagement 
some of the cattle were recovered and the whites took 
possession of the Indian town. There they found stores 
of beans and corn, and after they had taken what they 
could transport they burned all the huts and supplies 
that the Indians were treasuring for winter, and went 
their way. 

This battle of Tippecanoe was more critically impor- 
tant than would be thought from the comparatively 
small number concerned in it. Never again did a 
purely Indian army combat the whites east of the 
Mississippi. Had they won, the horrors the defenceless 
frontier must have experienced would have been appall- 
ing. But now they were disheartened and their power 
was broken. When news of the victory was dissemi- 
nated, then began the advance of the settlers, and 
their covered wagons appeared in all parts of the ter- 
ritory. Scarce had the smoke of battle cleared away 
when there was heard throughout the land the stroke 
of the woodman's ax and the voice of the ploughman. 

But what of Tecumseh.'' He had counseled the 
prophet to avoid an engagement until he returned. 
To quote a local resident — "Tecumseh was mad. 
This 'ere brother of his had got the tribe licked while 



310 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

he was gone. So he took the prophet by the hair of the 
head and gave him a jerk or two to show what he 
thought of him. For a while the Indians had to live on 
horseflesh, food was so scarce." 

The village of Battleground is perhaps seen at its 
liveliest on a Saturday evening. I found it had quite a 
holiday aspect then. The week's work was ended, and 
the people were ready to relax and turn their minds 
to other things. They flocked in from the country, 
and at the hitching-places the teams were as thick as 
they could stand. Groups of men gathered here and 
there on the sidewalks, and there was much visiting 
among those who were trading in the stores, and the 
barber's shop was an especially busy place. Over many 
of the stores were lodge rooms, and these were brightly 
lighted and suggestive of social good cheer. One 
institution that the village supports is a restaurant. 
It was in a rude little building a single story in height. 
Meals were served in a back room, and there was a 
front room where were counters and meagerly stocked 
shelves, and you could buy ice cream, candy, chewing 
gum, and some other small wares. Two helpings of 
ice cream were the usual requirement. Customers 
were free to sit on the stools in front of the counters and 
chat, and spit on the floor as much as they pleased. 
Out in front, under a porch roof, were benches for the 
convenience of other loiterers, and at the rear was a 
clump of trees and a pump where the leisurely also 
liked to linger. 



Tippecanoe 311 

In a grove, between the residential portion of the 
village and the battlefield park, was a camp meeting 
hamlet with its big audience hall, its dining pavilion, 
"young people's chapel," and short crowded streets of 
cottages. On Sunday morning, while in this vicinity, 
I accosted a man who was sitting on the piazza of a 
house just outside the grounds and asked about the 
camp meeting. He replied^ but before going into details 
mentioned that he was not well — guessed he had lung 
trouble. He coughed pretty continuously in a debili- 
tated sort of way. "When you're troubled like I am," 
said he, "the doctors tell you to sit out and lay out and 
everything else. That's why I'm here on the piazza. 
You want to know about this camp meeting.? It's one 
of the biggest in the state. People come from St. 
Louis and all the way around to attend the meetin's 
and spend a few weeks here. Every cottage is full, and 
lots of folks drive in from the country to spend the day. 
Why, man! I've seen buggies here cl'ar up and down 
the road on each side as thick as they could stand, and 
only space left between to drive through. The horses 
were unhitched and put in village barns. Sundays 
are the worst time. It's then that the most turn out, 
and they just push and crowd all day. You see that 
little shed next to the street in the corner of our yard. 
One Sunday, in that shed, I took in a hundred and ten 
dollars selling ice cream, lemonade, and pops. They 
make good long days of it in this camp meetin' business. 
There's a bugle blows at half-past six to get the people 



312 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

out to the first prayer service, and they keep goin' way 
into the night. 

"This is a religious town, camp meetin' or no camp 
meetin'. Two of our ministers get a thousand dollars 
a year, and the other six hundred — twenty-six hundred 
dollars a year paid out for preachers, and the place 
hasn't got over seven hundred inhabitants. But the 
people are prosperous, and I don't think there's an 
empty house in town. You just go out tomorrow 
morning and try to hire a man. You'll find 'em all 
busy, and you can't get one for love or money; or if 
you can, every man you strike wants twenty-five cents 
an hour. The farmers can't hardly get help at all. 

"Quite a lot of business is done here — oh, by golly; 
you bet! One hardware store does a thousand dollars 
a month. A good many village people like to go down 
to La Fayette on Saturday evening. It's a pleasant 
ride, and they want to have a little fun and get some 
beer, I guess. This is a dry town, and you never hear 
of a person getting into trouble, or anything like that. 
There's no nicer little place in the state. On Sunday 
the people mostly go to church and Sunday-school in 
the morning, and rest in the afternoon. There'll be a 
ball game somewhere on the outskirts, but they never 
allow no shooting around here on Sunday, and they 
don't go fishing on that day, 

"Paw and maw will be going to church by and by, 
but I shan't go. The preachers are the biggest hypo- 
crites on earth to my notion. All they care for is to run 







Returning from the spring house 



I 



Tippecanoe 313 

down the churches that don't belong to their own 
denomination. They bullyrag one another and claim 
their own particular sect has got the only true form of 
religion. Of course there's a heaven and a hell — the 
Bible teaches that; but each denomination seems to 
have a different heaven and hell. Are there half a 
dozen heavens and hells .f* You can't tell me any such 
thing. This chewing the rag, and this humbug business, 
I can't stand. 

"I used to belong to the Christian church. Perhaps 
I do yet. I help support it, though I don't attend 
services, and they don't never throw anyone out who 
keeps up his dues. So I guess they'll bury me when I 
die. If they don't they can feed me to the hogs. It's 
all the same to me. 

"The man who contributes liberally to the church is 
the sort of man the preachers like. Money's all 
they care for, and a feller can do anything if he 
only pays. There's churchmen here that go to 
La Fayette and sneak into a saloon way at the end of 
Main Street for fear someone will see 'em. But that 
ain't my way. I go in at the front door every time, 
and it don't matter who sees me. If I was walkin' 
along on La Fayette Main Street with a preacher and 
wanted a drink I'd go right into a saloon and get it. 
But I never was teetotally drunk in my life and never 
was arrested. 

"One thing I'd like to know is how the lawyers can 
get up and lie and plead cases they know are not honest, 



314 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

and be welcomed to the kingdom of heaven. Lots of 
lawyers will lie for five dollars and do any mean trick 
for ten or twelve dollars, and then get up and talk in 
prayer-meetin'. That's what hurts the churches today 
— lettin' these lyin' pups get in there and run things 
when everybody knows what they are. People ought 
to take a rope in church and lassoo such fellers — ^jerk 
their blamed heads off. Now that's my belief about 
such things." 

Earlier in the morning I had observed that more or 
less work of a minor nature was being done. The small 
boys had on overalls and were busy at little tasks 
about their homes; a man tethered a horse to feed by 
the wayside, and from each house a woman or girl came 
forth and swept the piazza and steps and then the walk 
clear out to the street. Now the bells were ringing 
their summons to church, and there began to appear on 
the walks processions of sober-garmented elders, and 
sedate persons of middle age, and gay-garbed little folk 
wending their way toward the meeting-houses; and 
frequent family teams came jogging in from the country 
and Were hitched near the edifices. But in the neighbor- 
hood of the stores and restaurant were a considerable 
number of loitering young men. The butcher's shop 
was temporarily open for business, and I asked a man 
who came out from this shop with a parcel in his hands 
if the young fellows we could see thereabouts were 
planning to go to church. 

"No," said he, "very few of this crowd go to church. 



Tippecanoe 315 

They'll loaf around here and tell lies all day. You'll 
find 'em here every pleasant Sunday." 

We chatted for a while, and he told me his name — 
Warren — ^Joe Warren — and said he had a farm a mile 
or two out of the village. Then I told him my name, 
and of my interest in that historic region. We had 
hardly exchanged these courtesies when he called to a 
man who was walking past and introduced me, observ- 
ing that he wanted me to know him because he had 
always lived there and could give me a good deal of 
information. "Oh! he can tell about things way 
back," said Joe as we were shaking hands. "He's old. 
You wouldn't think it to look at him, but he is. He's 
been married three times. Yes, sir, he's living with his 
third wife. However, you can talk with him some 
other time. I'll tell you what we'll do this morning. 
There's my team," and he pointed to a fat pony at- 
tached to a top buggy — "you come along with me and 
I'll show you where the prophet's town used to stand." 

So we left the much-married, youthful-looking an- 
cient, and drove out of the village. After Joe had 
stopped at his house to leave the meat with his mother 
we followed a devious byway toward the river. Around 
us were big farm fields, mostly fenced with wire, but 
rail fences were not entirely of the past, and sometimes 
there was a thorny osage hedge. Now and then we 
encountered a gate, and Joe got out and opened it, and 
when I had driven through, he shut it behind us. At 
length we came to the site of the old Indian camp in a 



3i6 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

brushy pasture on a high plateau overlooking the 
Wabash. 

The day was hot and bright, and the pasture was not 
an inviting place to linger. Joe said we would go and 
make a call at a neighboring farmhouse where lived a 
renter named Morris. As we approached the dwelling 
we encountered the renter near an outlying gate feeding 
a sow with a following of little pigs. He was gray and 
had passed three score, but age had not yet subdued 
his hearty, big-framed vigor. We went on and he 
walked beside the buggy until we entered the farmyard. 
There we found a hitching-place amid a medley of 
wagons and tools and woodpiles. When we had tied 
the horse we entered the houseyard. This was almost 
bare of grass, and the earth was hard trodden by human 
feet and those of a numerous colony of fowls. The 
house was a reasonably good farm structure, but some 
of the outbuildings were of logs — survivals of a more 
primitive period. They stood on the verge of a wooded 
slope that descended steeply to a "bayou," and beyond 
that was more woodland through which I could catch 
glimpses of the river. 

We had gone to the rear of the house. Probably the 
front door was never used except for a wedding or a 
funeral. A brisk elderly woman smoking a pipe, ap- 
peared at the back door, and exclaimed: "Well, my 
God! Joe, why didn't you bring granny? It's a mean 
trick of you to come without her. " 



Tippecanoe 3^7 

"I had this gentleman with me today," replied Joe, 
"but I'll sure fetch mother next time." 

Mr. Morris brought out some chairs for us, set them 
in the shadow of the henhouse and told us to make 
ourselves comfortable. He also provided chairs for 
himself and his wife. Two brawny, red-faced sons 
shortly afterward joined us and seated themselves on 
the steps of an adjoining shed. We were soon chatting 
about old times, and Mr. Morris said: "When I come 
here in 1862 'twan't no such country as it is now, I can 
tell you that, though it was already right sharply 
settled. We built a little log cabin 'bout the size of our 
present kitchen, and for heating and cooking we had an 
open fireplace. Now you've got to have a base-burner 
to be anywhere along in the crowd; but there's no use 
talkin'— it's not as healthy as the good old fireplace." 
"Yes," said Mrs. Morris, "the fireplace was what I 
cooked in when we was first married, and at one side of 
it was a big oven in which I baked the best bread that 
you ever tasted." 

"In my boyhood days comin' up," said Mr. Morris, 
"we had biscuit on Sunday and corn bread the balance 

of the time." 

"I don't know as I could make corn bread now," 
remarked Mrs. Morris. "I forgit, but I used to make 
it all the samee, and if I was to make a pone today such 
as I used to make, you would never be willing to leave 
here till it was eaten up." 

"I'll tell yer," commented Mr. Morris, "we had 



3i8 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

just as much to eat in old times as we do now. There 
was plenty of deer here yet in '62, and wild turkeys — 
lots of 'em. But I used to hunt with a brich-loader 
that would bust my nose every time I shot it. The gun 
would jump and kick and hit me in the face in spite of 
all I could do. There used to be wild hogs, and we'd 
go out and shoot 'em in butcherin' time. 'Bout the best 
place to find 'em was up the river a few miles at what 
was called Hog P'int. We had all the fish we wanted. 
My goodness alive! we'd ketch that length of bass," 
and he held his hands a considerable space apart. "We 
used to ketch these here salmon, too. Once in a while 
we run onto a salmon, now. That reminds me of a 
time I got some fish from a net that was set out of 
season. There were three of us fellers together when 
we found the net. I and Cunningham were bullheaded 
things, and Bill Wesley was kind of a dare-devil, too. 
Besides, we didn't think the owner of the net would 
pester us much, even if he caught us, because he was 
breakin' the law to set it. So we drew it in and tuck 
all the fish we could carry off. " 

"We had twelve sunfish for breakfast yesterday," 
said Mrs. Morris. "I rolled 'em in meal and fried 'em 
in fat, and the meat was so tender it was fairly drippin' 
off the bones. They were fine. " 

"Mrs. Morris," said Joe, "do you know what I'd 
have done if I'd known you had them fish.^^ I'd have 
come over and stole 'em. Say, I'll bet they were nice!" 

One of the boys brought out from the shed a leather 



Tippecanoe 3^9 

shot pouch, and a powder receptacle that was made of a 
cowhorn. "Before Dad and Ma'm were married, 
said he, "Dad lived way yonder in Kentucky, and he 
got this powder horn and shot pouch there from the 
Indians. Fve often hearn him tellin' that they are 
more than a hunderd years old." 

"Since I come here I've never seen any Indians but 
once," said Mr. Morris. "That once was when a party 
of twelve passed through on their way to Washington. 
They wa'n't at all wild in their clothes. Oh, by jmksl 
they was just as well trimmed up as you are, or any 
other man. They stopped here by the Wabash. One 
of 'em said he could swim across the river under water, 
and it was good and wide there, too. He flipped mto 
that water like a duck, and the next thing we saw his 
head come up way over at the other shore. The rest 
couldn't do it. The race was running out of 'em, but 
he was a full-blood yet. He could swim better than 
the other eleven, and he could run further. He beat 
any man I ever laid eyes on in going. " 

"Right under that southeast corner of the house is 
the skileton of an Indian," remarked Mrs. Morris. 
"The men found it when they was digging for the 
foundation." 

"What in the Old Nick did they leave it thar for?" 
inquired one of the boys. 

"They didn't like to be disturbin' a dead man," 
replied Mrs. Morris. 



320 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"I reckon you feel nervous sometimes when you 
happen to think of him," said Joe. 

"No," declared Mrs. Morris, "it never makes me a 

bit scairt. I never did anything to that dead man, and 
I'm a woman that lives after the Lord." 

"If you'd told Al' Jones about that skileton he'd 
have give yer fifty dollars for it," one of the boys 
affirmed. "He's got his house full of curiosities and 
ain't satisfied yit. " 

"The more Indian relics he can git the better he's 
pleased, " said Mrs. Morris. " I've give Albert a double 
handful of arrowheads." 

"And there's old Judge Dehart — I'll bet he's got 
ten bushel of 'em," said the son. "He's just as fierce 
after relics as Al' is, and he has been at it longer." 

"I got just one fault to find with old times," re- 
marked Mr. Morris. "We had chills and fever, and we 
had plenty, oh, you bet! The malaria got nine out of 
ten of us in the fall of the year. It used to be a des- 
perate thing. You'd see an old feller settin' around 
with his back humped up and an overcoat on, right 
out in the sun in the hottest place he could find, and 
shivering. Then, in a little while, he'd be burnt up 
with fever. But it was a disease that could be cured. 
My daughter had a lump in her side that they called an 
ager cake. We thought she was goin' to die, but we 
took her to ole Doc Burton, and with only two treat- 
ments he knocked that thar ager cake all asunder. He 




Ready to start for work 



Tippecanoe 321 

didn't tell what the medicine was, but it must have 
been some kind of p'ison. I had the chills — " 

"Yes," interrupted Mrs. Morris, "Daddy had 
chills, and I had the 'zemy; and r'aly I hain't got over 
that 'zemy to this day, though I've tuck all kinds of 
medicine, pretty near." 

"But I broke my chills," resumed Mr. Morris. "I 
had 'em every other day until I'd had three, and I just 
thought they was goin' to kill me. By jolly! I was no 
account whatever. When the fourth ager day come I 
e't a little bite, put on an old blue soldier overcoat I 
had, and told my woman I was goin' to town. Then I 
tuck a quart bottle and went to the woods and about 
half filled the bottle with quaking asp bark, green, 
right oif" the tree. After that I jumped on my horse, 
and away I went. As soon as I got to the store I carried 
in my bottle of bark and says, 'Give me a pint of good 
whiskey in that.' 

"The clerk poured in the whiskey and I paid him 
and stepped right outside of the door and drank nearly 
all of it. Afterward I mounted my horse and started 
for home, and that's all I knew until the next morning. 
Then I found that I was lyin' by the roadside. I got 
up and looked at myself and I was the dirtiest man on 
the face of the earth. I had bowdaciously puked all 
over my clothes." 

"Did you puke or vomit .^" asked Mrs. Morris with 
a humorous twinkle in her eyes and an Implication in 
her voice that his expression was rather inelegant. 



322 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

"I puked," he reiterated, "and my overcoat was so 
bedaubed I left it right thar. The horse had gone on 
home, and Vd got to walk. I was awful thirsty. Thar 
was a little of the asp bark and whiskey mixture left in 
my bottle, but I couldn't bear it. Near by was a 
swampy pool, and I knelt down and blew the green 
scum away and drank that water. " 

"Didn't you hear me hollerin' for you while you was 
lyin' thar by the roadside.^" questioned his wife. "I 
hollered till about midnight." 

"No," he answered, "I didn't even hear the prairie 
wolves howlin', and they were just as thick as could be, 
but they didn't pester me none." 

"They won't bother a dead man," remarked one of 
the sons. "They'll go right on." 

"Prairie wolves are a little yaller concern," Mr. 
Morris continued. "Out in a lonely country they'll 
foller a man and make out like they're goin' to do things, 
but they don't. One night I went to town and stayed 
till nine or ten o'clock. " 

"What was you doin' thar so late?" Mrs. Morris 
inquired. 

"Havin' a little fun, that's all," he answered. 

"Tell it straight," she cautioned. "Say you got 
drunk." 

"Well," said he, "I left town with a meal sack full of 
beef on the horse in front of me. It was six miles to 
whar I lived. About half way the wolves commenced 
crowding around. I s'pose the smell of the meat at- 



Tippecanoe 323 

tracted 'em, and terrectly seem like thar was a thou- 
sand. They were yelpin' this way and that and every 
way, and they followed me plumb home. They were 
right thar when I put up my horse and went in the 
house with the meat. Them times we didn't care for 
prairie wolves any more than for dogs. The old set- 
tlers here wa'n't afraid of the devil. At that day and 
age of the world men in this new country didn't propose 
to be run over by anyone or anything. " 

About this time some relatives of the family arrived, 
and soon afterward Joe and I took our departure. 

On the following day I decided I must see the Tippe- 
canoe River before I left the region, and I felt assured 
I would find a wild and satisfying beauty along a stream 
with so delectable a name. I was much encouraged, 
after leaving the village and the highroad and following 
a lane for quite a distance, to find on ahead the most 
idyllic farm home I had seen for a long time. The 
dwelling stood on a knoll, under a group of large shad- 
owing trees, just beyond a wide but shallow brook, and 
down the slope beside the stream was a neat little 
spring house where the family kept their milk and 
cream and whatever else was better stored in a cool 
place. Not far away the brook was overhung by trees, 
and there a herd of cattle had gathered and stood in the 
shallows contentedly chewing their cuds and flicking at 
the flies with their tails. The road to the house went 
directly through the water, but a long plank was laid 
down to aff^ord a passage for persons on foot. I ob- 



324 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

served that this bridge was also much used by some 
pigs that roamed about in the pasture. They seemed 
to think it was for their especial benefit, and they 
would walk soberly across it, even if they came out of 
the middle of the stream to do so, and then wended 
their way back to midstream from the other side. 

At the house I obtained directions, and went on 
across two or three big grass fields and entered a vast 
expanse of corn. The corn was marvellously tall and 
stout-stalked, and might have been attractive if it had 
not been so broken down and tipped over by the winds 
and rains. It was fully ripe, and the leaves were brown 
and dead, and the stalks lay at every sort of slant. 
Many were flat on the ground. As a result the walking 
was decidedly arduous, but what made matters ten 
times worse was the abundance of weeds, and especially 
the clinging vines that festooned and tangled the stalks. 
The majority of the weeds were of a savage, fighting 
clan armed with prickles, and I collected a great variety 
of their barbed weapons on my clothing. The wild 
cucumber troubled me most. Their spines were both 
sharp and slender, and, like porcupine quills, were 
bound to keep on in the direction they started. 

I was heartily thankful when I got through the corn 
to a line of trees that I thought indicated the river was 
not far away. But here, to my dismay, I was confronted 
by battalions of horseweeds, growing as thick as they 
could stand and spindling up to a height of eight or ten 
feet. I was half minded to turn back. However, after 



Tippecanoe 325 

a little deliberation, I began to break a path through 
the jungle. The ground was rough, and I encountered 
snags and unexpected holes and steep-sided muddy 
ravines. Besides, the nettles stung my hands, and, as if 
that was not enough, some mosquitoes appeared on the 
scene and began jabbing me. Enveloped by the rank 
undergrowth amid the scattered trees I could see only a 
few feet ahead so that I did not glimpse the river until 
I was right on its verge. And what was the reward of 
all my toil and swelter.^ A roily, sluggish stream, bor- 
dered by perpendicular mudbanks that were eaten 
away by freshets, and overgrown with thickets of weeds 
and bushes. In this rank environing tangle grew a 
straggling of tall trees, some of which had been under- 
mined and had fallen into the water. There were no 
stones or grass along shore to give a touch of either 
vigor or grace. I turned away disappointed, retraced 
my steps through the riverside jungle, following the 
narrow trail I had previously broken, and presently 
emerged into the cornfield. I kept on, dodging about 
among the tangled stalks and belligerent weeds as best 
I could, and finally escaped to the mowing land, a good 
deal exhausted and the worse for wear. As my route 
to the village passed Joe Warren's house I stopped on 
his porch to rest, and related to him my experiences. 
"Well, now, rU tell you," said he, "you take it on 
those bottoms, the soil is a sandy loom, and very little 
wind will blow the corn over. But the corn is seldom 
ever damaged that way. Whatever is blown over early 



326 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

in the season will raise up, but after it gets ears on it 
those hold the stalks down. Then the morning-glory 
vines and the pea vines and gopher vines and wild 
cucumber vines grow over them and so tangle the stalks 
together that dog gone if you can't almost take hold 
at one corner and shake the whole field ! 

"I don't like those cucumber vines a darn bit. A 
field overgrown with 'em is the meanest thing to shuck 
corn in, and it's hard to get men to work in such a field. 
Those prickles go right through cotton gloves, and 
they'll go through your trousers; and when they get 
into your flesh they break off and make festering sores. 
The buskers like to wear overalls that have been used 
all summer by some house painter. If the cloth is well 
daubed with paint the prickles won't go through. 

"We can't get rid of the weeds in the bottoms because 
the floods bring on a fresh lot of seed every year. But 
we raise our heaviest corn there. Oh, that land is im- 
mense — it's rich! The floods keep it fertilized with 
deposits of sediment, and you can just corn that land 
right along. Sometimes we have a fall flood. That's 
bad, for if the corn gets well soaked it sours and softens 
and is hardly fit for hog feed. So we always aim to jerk 
out that corn in the bottoms the first thing. 

"The bottom land brings a good price. If any was 
for sale it would be about a hundred and a quarter an 
acre I suppose. But you won't find any man on this 
road so dissatisfied that he wants to sell. There's some- 
thing wrong with the farmer who doesn't make money 



Tippecanoe 3^7 

when the crops are fetchin' the prices they do now. 
Even a renter can get rich here, and pay eight dollars 
an acre a year for the land, too." 

"By the way," said I, "what does the word Tippe- 
canoe mean?" 

"It means Buffalo Fish," replied Joe. 

"If I'd known that I never would have gone to look 
at it," said I. ''But I had imagined it meant River of 
Paradise or something of that sort. " 

"Well," responded Joe, "if you'd gone up a few miles 
farther you'd have found it an awful pretty stream. 
There it flows between clay bluffs and hills, and the 
bottom of the river is all gravel and rocks, and the water 
is perfectly clear." 

The sun was dipping low in the west, and long cool 
shadows were stretching eastward, and my companion 
remarked that he must go and look for his cow. "It'll 
soon be dark, " he added, " and she has a habit of getting 
off in the brush at the far side of the pasture. " 

So Joe and I parted, and late the same day I took a 
train that carried me homeward, and my rambles in the 
region of the Great Lakes were ended. 

Note.— The battlefield of Tippecanoe is a hundred miles almost 
due south from Chicago. It is in a delightful rural region near the 
head of navigation on the Wabash River, and the vicinity is not so 
changed but that one finds it easy to reproduce in fancy the old 
fight. It is a pleasure to loiter in the adjacent village, and if one's 
taste runs to camp meetings you can come in midsummer and find 
such a meeting in full blast, and the grounds only separated from 



328 Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes 

the famous battlefield by a fence. The farm region adjacent has 
considerable attractiveness, and I suggest that it would be of 
interest to one unused to this western region to go back from the 
river far enough to see what was originally prairie in contrast to 
the wooded land that bordered the streams. 



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ing simplicity with which he records the manners and customs 
of the country." — The Nation 

Along French Byways 

With 48 full-page illustrations and many vignettes by the author 
Crown 8vo, $2.00. (Postage 20 cts.) 

"Mr. Johnson's book is a peculiarly winning sort. We know 
of no other which describes with so much homely simplicity and 
sympathetic pleasantness the rural life of the fair land of France." 

— New York Tribune 

The Isle of the Shamrock 

Fully illustrated by the author 

Crown 8vo, $2.00 net. (Postage 20 cts.) 

"For more kindly appreciation no people could ask." 

— Chicago Tribune 

The Land of Heather 

Fully illustrated by the author 
Crown Svo, $2.00 net. (Postage 20 cts.) 

"As informing as it is readable and picturesque." 

— London Globe 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

SIXTY-FOUR AND SIXTY-SIX FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK 



Pathfinders of the West 

By AGNES C. LAUT 

Being the thrilling story of the adventures of the men who discovered 
the Great Northwest, Radisson, La Verendrye, Lewis and Clark 

Illustrated, cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net 

"A thrilling account of the adventures of Radisson, La 
Verendrye, Lewis and Clark, and others who discovered the 
great Northwest. The author's stories of these men are well 
studied, well expressed, always reasonable, always enthusiastic, 
yet never fulsome. . . . Miss Laut's simply written chap- 
ters have all the compelling charm of good fiction. Many readers 
not accustomed to literature of this order will peruse the book 
with eager delight because of the quietly effective manner in 
which the dramatic facts are presented." 

— Chicago Record-Herald 



»> 



Vikings of the Pacific 

A continuation of '^Pathfinders of the West 
Illustrated, cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net 

"Miss Laut sets herself the task of writing about the Pacific 
pioneers and explorers in popular style, and she has achieved a 
huge success. In interest her stories leave the historical novel 
far in the rear, for she deals in the first instance with well-estab- 
lished facts which are romantic enough without imaginative 
coloring. . . . Her book awakens a desire to know more 
about these lusty vikings of the Pacific, so that the measure of 
Miss Laut's success is something more than to have written a 
popular book." — New York Sun 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

SIXTY-FOUR AND SIXTY-SIX FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK 



Labrador 

By DR. WILFRED T. GRENFELL 
Illustrated, cloth, 8vo, $2.25 net 

In this volume Dr. Grenfell supplies the only full and ade- 
quate account of Labrador — the country, its natural resources, 
the climatic conditions and its people. In addition to the main 
body of the book, with its chapters on Physiography, the People 
of the Coast, the Missions, the Dogs, the various Fisheries, 
there are short chapters on the Flora, the Fauna, the Geology, 
etc., each by a scientific author of standing. The volume, pro- 
fusely illustrated from photographs in the author's own collec- 
tion, reveals an unknown land to the vast majority of readers. 

Alaska — The Great Country 

By ELLA HIGGINSON 
Illustrated, cloth, 12 mo, $2.25 net 

"No other book gives so clear an impression of the beauty 
and grandeur and vastness of our northernmost territory, nor 
so inspires one to explore its vastnesses. She has mingled enough 
of history and statistics to make it authoritative, and has em- 
bellished the tale with stories and anecdotes to prevent its being 
dull, and has succeeded in writing what might well be called a 
great book on a great subject." 

— The Boston Evening Transcript 

In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 

By JAMES OUTRAM 

With maps and forty-six illustrations^ reproduced from photographs 
Cloth, imperial 8vo, gilt top, $2.50 net 

"It is so inspired with the glories of the mountains, their 
sublime solitudes and silences, and their fascinating perils that 
it might well be called the epic of American mountaineering." 

— World Today 

"There is an unexpected freshness in the whole treatment, 
a vigor of movement in the narrative, and a brilliancy of touch 
in the drawing that are altogether exceptional. No one, we 
think, will be able to read this work without forming a strong 
desire to visit the Canadian Rockies, and the admirable photo- 
graphs which have been used in the illustrations will strengthen 
that desire." — Church Standard 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

SIXTY-FOUR AND SIXTY-SIX FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK 



Stories from American History 

Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road 

By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE Cloth, $1.50 net 

The Story of the American Merchant 
Marine 

By JOHN R. SPEARS Cloth, $1.50 net 

Yankee Ships and Yankee Sailors 

By JAMES BARNES Cloth, $1.50 

The Last American Frontier 

By FREDERICK LOGAN PAXSON Cloth, $1.50 net 

The Story of Old Fort Loudon 

By CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK Cloth, $1.50 

Southern Soldier Stories 

By GEORGE GARY EGGLESTON Cloth, $1.50 

Tales of the Enchanted Isles of the Atlantic 

By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON Cloth, $1.50 

De Soto and His Men in the Land of Florida 

By GRACE KING Cloth, $1.50 

The Story of the Great Lakes 

By EDWARD CHANNING and MARION F. LANSING 

Cloth, $1.50 net 

The Story of the New England Whalers 

By JOHN R. SPEARS Cloth, $1.50 net 

Buccaneers and Pirates of our Coast 

By FRANK R. STOCKTON Cloth, $1.50 

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Illustrated Descriptions of 
American Places and People 

By M, A. DeWOLFE HOWE 

Boston — The Place and the People 

With over one hundred illustrations, including many from pen 
drawings executed especially for this volume by L. A. Holman 

Decorated cloth, boxed, $2.00 net; by mail, $2.20 
By MRS. ST. JULIEN RAVENEL 

Charleston — The Place and the People 

Illustrated from photographs and drawings by Vernon H. Bailey 
Decorated cloth, boxed, $2.00 net; by mail, $2.20 

By GRACE KING 

New Orleans — The Place and the People 

With eighty-three illustrations from drawings by Frances Jones 
Decorated cloth, boxed, $2.00 net; by mail, $2.20 

By AGNES REPPLIER 

Philadelphia — ^The Place and the People 

With eighty-two illustrations from drawings by Ernest C. Peixotto 
Decorated cloth, boxed, $2.00 net; by mail, $2.20 

By JOHN C. VAN DYKE 

The New New York — The Place and 

the People 

With one hundred and twenty-six illustrations, including twenty- 
four in color, by Joseph Pennell 

Decorated cloth, $4.00 net; by mail, $4.22 



Welcome books, either for the traveller's use during his 
visit, or as a pleasant reminder of bygone days, or to bring the 
different districts vividly before the minds of intending travellers, 
or before those who are unable to leave home. 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

SIXTY-FOUR AND SIXTY-SIX FIFTH AVENUK NEW YORK 



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